This week we’re celebrating what would have been Alfred Hitchcock’s 113th birthday by revisiting his first original screenplay and first film for British International Pictures. Often referred to by Hitch himself as the second true “Hitchcock” film it was the only one for which the Master of Suspense took or was given full writing credits and it stood as one of the most realistic portrayals of the boxing world for decades to come.
Now… watching the movie. This one is a little trickier than usual. The movie is available for free on the Internet Archive. Unfortunately the version that has been uploaded is not the greatest visually. A version with much better video quality has been uploaded to YouTube but the YouTube version is more silent than your average silent film. My best recommendation is to open the Internet Archive version in one tab, the YouTube version in another, and start them both at the same time so you can enjoy the crisp visuals from YouTube while not missing out on the audio tracking that goes with the film.
