Boy, was this a frustrating experience. Arguably Hitchcock’s least-admired silent picture—and perhaps his least-admired film full stop—this is a nonsense concoction about a rich girl whose father decides to teach her a lesson when he gets angry about her choice of paramours. The story is completely lacking in believable motivations, stakes or character investment. Hitchcock would later say that there was no script and it was made up the whole way through. That checks out.
There are some notable techniques…
