Die Frau des Farmers

"The Farmer's Wife" is a charming rustic, semi-romantic comedy from the silent picture era. Without seeing the credits, you might never guess that it was made by the "Master of Suspense", Alfred Hitchcock - but if you know who the director was, it is easy to see the masterful touches Hitchcock was known for.

The story is a simple one. Farmer Sweetland (Jameson Thomas) has lost his beloved wife some time ago, and comes to decide that he should marry again. He methodically evaluates, and plans to propose to, all of the eligible women he can think of. But all the while he overlooks the best, and obvious (to the audience) choice: his devoted housekeeper Araminta (Lillian Hall-Davis, who is charming in the role). "Minta" is far wiser, sweeter, and prettier than the other candidates, and she also cares for Sweetland in a way they never will. The plot, therefore, revolves around whether he will figure this out before he gets stuck with an unsuitable mate instead.

Hitchcock applies the creativity and attention to detail that he would later use in his great suspense films, and makes out of a simple plot a movie that is very funny, and also at times quite touching. A great deal of the characters' feelings and thoughts are communicated without dialogue cards, through masterful silent camera work. The most powerful recurring image is a pair of chairs near the fireplace, where Farmer Sweetland had obviously spent many happy hours with his dear departed first wife. Early in the film, as he hosts a wedding dinner for his daughter, he begins to look longingly at the chairs, and we know what he is thinking even before the dialogue cards tell us. As the film proceeds, we occasionally come back to the fireplace, and eventually "Minta" begins to sit with him by the fireplace, sympathizing and helping with his disappointed matrimonial projects. The suggestion is obvious to everyone but Sweetland.

In the lead role, Thomas responds to Hitchcock's direction, sometimes making his character appear somewhat ridiculous in his miscalculated plans, and at other times evoking our complete sympathy and pity for his loneliness. The rest of the cast works very well too, especially Gordon Harker, whose expert comic timing plays wonderfully in the role of Farmer Sweetland's handyman.

There is one long, hilarious comic sequence, at a house party hosted by one of Sweetland's prospective mates, and you have to watch it two or three times to catch all of the detail Hitchcock packed into the sequence. The rest of the movie is filled with lighter comic touches, and concentrates on giving us a surprisingly tender look at the characters' lives.

Hitchcock fans should take delight in seeing how the master used his talents in such a different genre, and any fan of romantic comedies who is willing to try a silent film should also enjoy "The Farmer's Wife".

If you loved Sir Alfred Hitchcock and his contributions and services to the film industry, you should see all of his films for study and preservation. This is one of his early silent films. If you have the patience to watch a two hour silent film, it's not that easy. We're so used to speeches and conversations that we forget to watch and see their facial reactions in the early age of cinema. This film is more comedic than dark and dramatic. While the story is more farcical, it is nice to see Hitchcock have a sense of humor since he became more known for the macabre in his films. It is not hard to believe that film audiences didn't laugh and enjoy this film in the cinema in 1928 long before the Great Depression. Still, I would watch it again if I had too. It's not a bad film. You wouldn't know Hitchcock directed it.

This early Hitchcock silent, his first for British International Pictures, is a simple romantic comedy adapted from a stage play. A far cry from crime and suspense, but at this point Hitchcock had neither the influence nor the realisation of his true forte to select his projects.

As with all but one of the Hitchcock silents, the screenplay was by Eliot Stannard. Stannard, with his typical understanding of the visual medium, dispenses with the wordiness of a direct stage-to-screen adaptation. He allows time for the characters to reveal their feelings in reaction shots and point-of-view shots, and replaces verbal gags with visual ones. The Farmer's Wife is thus as devoid of unnecessary intertitles as, say, The Manxman.

Given its rural setting, Hitchcock was more or less obliged to include some shots of rolling hillsides. Hitch doesn't seem to have liked the countryside much – in most of his later films if it appears at all it's as a functional back-projection – but he doesn't do too badly here as far as pure photographic beauty goes. Other than that the shooting style is typical of Hitchcock. There is a growing use of fluid camera movement, and we can see that Hitchcock technique, whereby the camera appears to be leading the audience, gradually revealing to us or drawing us in.

Whether it comes from Stannard's script or Hitchcock's head I don't know, but there is a massive tendency here towards point-of-view shots during dialogue scenes, in which the other speaker looks straight into camera. The majority of these are rather pointless, with the exception of several appropriately ghastly close-ups of the Farmer's bridal candidates.

To say the conclusion of The Farmer's Wife is predictable would be a grand understatement. A shortsighted person could see it coming through several miles of fog. Not a bad thing in itself, but rather than play upon its obviousness (which Stannard and Hitchcock must have been aware of), the picture simply becomes a tedious game of waiting for the inevitable. The Farmer's Wife is only quite funny, and is altogether too long.

After his wife dies, and their daughter marries, lonely widowed farmer Jameson Thomas (as Samuel Sweetland) decides to look for holy matrimony with another woman. With the help of devoted housekeeper Lillian Hall-Davis (as Minta Dench) and handyman Gordon Harker (as Churdles Ash), Mr. Thomas proposes to three matronly prospects: independent widow Louie Pounds (as Louisa Windeatt), frigid spinster Maud Gill (as Thirza Tapper), and pillowy postmistress Olga Slade (as Mary Hearn). None of the women prove to be satisfactory, but Thomas' ideal mate is closer than he thinks…

If "The Farmer's Wife" were filmed a few years earlier, in Hollywood, with Wallace Reid and Norma Shearer, we might have had four decades of romantic Alfred Hitchcock comedies… well, maybe not. Anyway, it's a good silent moving picture. The opening sequence, which shows the sad passing of the farmer's wife, is very effective; it's a good change from the original play, considering the silent film medium. But, this film is too long, with the daughter's marriage immediately and unnecessarily dragging the story down; moreover, the ending is drawn out. Mr. Hitchcock's food filming fetish is evident throughout - nobody touches Ms. Gill's gelatin!

****** The Farmer's Wife (3/2/28) Alfred Hitchcock ~ Jameson Thomas, Lillian Hall-Davis, Gordon Harker, Maud Gill

Very funny. I never realized Hitchcock could do slapstick. Surprised to find the story and characters easy to follow and identify with even with the near lack of title cards. The best silent Hitchcock film I have seen and maybe the funniest film he ever made.