The Pleasure Garden

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Audience Member If you're a Hitchcock connoisseur I would recommend watching this. There are definite signs of Hitch's future work. Mildly entertaining if very straightforward. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/16/23 Full Review michael d A glimmering of things to come. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member The storyline is decent, but conventional. However, it is brought to screen masterfully and with attention to detail making the best out of the technical limitations of the time (something that isn't even that important if you've got a cute dog that serves as a comic relief). Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member This is NOT what I expected from a movie called "Pleasure Garden". Hitchcock's first full-length film may also be his worst. A predictable, joyless melodrama with no real visual style to speak of. And why would you cast two women who look almost exactly alike in the leads? It's infuriating. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Audience Member The feature film debut of Alfred Hitchcock is an interesting one because of what it represents on so many levels, but sadly the least impressive thing about The Pleasure Garden is the film itself. Not to say it's bad, it's not, but it is an average, poorly aged romantic drama which probably only continues to draw any audience due to the legacy of its director. A legacy built on many better films made after 1925. While there are confusing story aspects, which I can assume is the result of hack jobs by distributors, I do find there to be a handful of impressive sequences of editing and visual storytelling. Hitchcock's sensibilities and tricks can faintly be seen here, and that is exciting. He also gets good performances out of his cast, but these are generally weak characters in a trite, generic romance plot. 
5/10 Okay, so where can I find the 75 minute cut of this film listed by Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd, and IMDb? The only version I could find is a bootlegged 60 minute cut that is sold as a DVD and posted on YouTube. While I'm at it, why doesn't the BFI just release their super cool, restored 90 minute cut from 2012? Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review joel h The Pleasure Garden takes a long time to get where it's going. It's also difficult to tell the lead characters apart at times. It seems Alfred Hitchcock was still getting his feet under himself when in regard to filmmaking, but it was still interesting to see his directorial debut. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Pleasure Garden

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