Alfred Hitchcock earned the nickname "the master of suspense" but he tried his hand at a number of different genres early in his career. The offbeat 1931 romantic comedy Rich and Strange offers a satirical take on the genre through the story of a middle-class couple in a rut. This is an early Alfred Hitchcock movie for your library's classic film collection, or for film studies educators wanting to offer something other than the classic titles on your Alfred Hitchcock lesson plan.
The brilliant opening scene shows an entire city leaving work and crowding the streets and subway cars to get home, a sequence played without dialogue, like a silent movie with rich sound effects. "I want adventure," complains bored white-collar husband Fred (Henry Kendall) to his suburban wife Emily (Joan Barry). Her wish is granted when they inherit a small fortune from an uncle who encourages them to travel the world and broaden their horizons.
They confront every new experience with the blinders of their repressed, complacent, provincial lives. Henry spends much of their around-the-world voyage seasick and holed up in his cabin, leaving the more sociable Emily to be wooed by an older society gentleman, and when he finally rouses himself he becomes entranced by a glamorous European princess. She is, of course, simply a con woman who sizes Henry up as an easy mark with money and he's easy prey.
Before their adventure comes to its conclusion, they are left behind as the ship sinks, literally adrift before finally returning home to their safe, sheltered life in England. It's an unusual film in Hitchcock's career and Hitchcock and his wife and creative partner Alma Reville took rare screen credit on the screenplay. Fred is the least likable of Hitch's protagonists and Henry Kendall plays him as a sour, shallow man whose pretensions of sophistication are betrayed in every gesture.
Fred and Emily are so sheltered they are scandalized and discomforted by the Follies Bergere in Paris, fleeing the theater in their embarrassment. They are most comfortable in the social bubble of fellow countrymen of their world cruise. It's a minor but interesting film from Hitchcock's early career, a rare comedy featuring some of the most pointed social satire. It's not the film you would choose to begin exploring Hitchcock's British period but it illuminates themes he weaves into his later thrillers of complacent middle-class characters thrust into danger and international intrigue.
Kino Lorber's new DVD and Blu-ray edition are mastered from the 4K BFI restoration, which features a crisp image and digitally remastered sound. It's the best this film has ever looked on home video (after so many indifferent releases made from often substandard prints) and is likely to stand as the definitive disc edition. Features new audio commentary by film historian Troy Howarth, an archival audio clip from Francois Truffaut's interview with Hitchcock, and a short introduction by Noël Simsolo (in French with English subtitles).