September 6, 2018
The Ring – UK,
1927
Alfred Hitchcock’s The
Ring can best be appreciated if you view it after setting aside any
preconceived notions of what an Alfred Hitchcock film is, for there’s very
little in the film that resembles the legendary director’s better known works.
Its plot doesn’t revolve around a murder or crime, at least in the traditional
sense of the world, and there’s no conspiracy or wrongfully-accused man on the
run. In its place is a deceptively simpler story, one involving a love triangle
and highlighting the unnerving effects of suspicion on a brittle mind. And here’s
the good news: The film is quite entertaining.
The Ring begins
with images of fun and joviality at a fair. This joyfulness masks a slightly
darker side, for just as hundreds are enjoying themselves on swing carousels,
at tests of strengths, and at a dunking booth, scores are standing outside a
circus tent having their manhood questioned. Who’s brave enough, whose got the guts, who’s not too cowardly to go
toe to toe in the ring with “One-Round” Jack? It’s hard to imagine such events being allowed
today, and it’s possible that it was a cinematic exaggeration. An article
entitled “A Few Punches More – The Fairground Boxing Shows” on The University
of Sheffield’s website includes a brief mention of lay men being challenged by
professional boxers, but no reference to promoters standing outside circus
tents and bating ordinary people to put themselves in real physical danger.
However, the way it is depicted in movies is an efficient means of introducing
an unheralded fighter and giving him a chance at instant stardom.
And this is what happens to Bob Corby (Ian Hunter). In the
film’s opening scene, we see him standing among the crowd of spectators being
urged to either challenge “One-Round” Jack (Carl Brisson) or buy a ticket to
see him fight. Corby, however, is more interested in Nelly (Lillian
Hall-Davies), the young lady handing out tickets. As luck would have it, Nelly
turns out to be Jack’s fiancée, and when Jack sees them conversing, he gets the
kind of look in his eyes that usually signals that someone is getting so wound
up that he ends up making mistakes. Eventually, Corby is coaxed into fighting
Jack, and, predictably, Jack goes down in defeat. The victory elevates Corby
and puts him on a path to both championships and boxing greatness; however, it
is devastating for Jack, destroying his marquee value and sending his ranking
tumbling. The loss also elevates Corby in Nelly’s eyes, and she becomes confused
by the abrupt strength of her attraction to him.
In a more conventional film, there would be a clear
distinction between Corby and Jack, and that difference would determine just
who the audience backed in the love triangle. However, Hitchcock wisely avoids
this. Both Jack and Corby appear to be decent people, and under different
conditions, it’s easy to see them becoming close friends. Jack deeply loves Nelly
and is dedicated to providing the best for her. Corby, for his part, is a
typical member of what has been dubbed the “lost generation,” a term that
denotes youth in the 1920’s who spent lavishly and acted as if they didn’t have
a care in the world. It should be noted, however, that while Corby could be
criticized for pursuing someone else’s girlfriend early in the film, there is
no evidence that the two of them act on their attraction after she and Jack are
married. There is, on the other hand, the framed picture of Corby that Nelly
has in her living room and the way she passionately clutches it to her chest during
key moments. Is it possible something is going on? Sure, but we never see any
direct evidence of it. Nevertheless, what we do see is more than enough to
justify Jack’s budding suspicions.
Hitchcock’s film, therefore, is about the power of jealousy
and how even the best of us can fall prey to it. As Kubrick did later in his
masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut, Hitchcock
allows viewers inside his lead’s growing paranoia; we see the nightmare images
that haunt his fragile mind: Jack’s and his wife’s eyes locking, their lips
getting closer, their lips finally meeting in a long passionate kiss. Hitchcock
is allowing viewers to understand Jack’s emotional state and to be aware of
just what causes him to lash out in the way that he does. This enables the
audience to never fully see the character as a villain; instead, he is the
victim of circumstances beyond his control and, thus, a more sympathetic character.
This makes his final confrontation with Corby a much more poignant affair, yet
even here Hitchcock never makes Corby the villain. This is made clear in the
film’s final moments, which focus not on Jack or Nelly, but on Corby’s
resignation of all that has transpired.
The Ring may not
give Hitchcock many opportunities to employ the camera techniques that so
dazzled audiences later in his career, and some of his choices, such as
shooting the back of the heads of boxing spectators, reveal a director who is
still learning his craft. That said, Hitchcock still gets ample opportunity to
show off his camera prowess. In addition to the scenes described earlier
involving Jack’s mental state, Hitchcock uses a montage of boxing rankings to
show one boxer’s rise in status. In another, he cuts from a handshake between
Jack and his manager to the arms of Nelly and Corby, which are in a similar
position. In a later scene, Hitchcock gives us a shot of one of Nelly’s hands
and arms, and it is clearly demonstrates her inner conflict, for on one of her
fingers is a wedding ring and on her arm a bracelet that Corby gave her earlier
in the film. In a prior scene in a chapel, Hitchcock demonstrates his eye for
the unusual by showing a procession of arrivals to Jack and Nelly’s wedding
ceremony. The arrivals are, of course, circus performers, a sight that the
priest has clearly never seen before. He even witnesses some conjoined twins
arguing over which side to sit on. The scene is humorous, but never in a
condescending way.
The same cannot be said of two other moments in the film,
and each of them has the potential to unease contemporary viewers. In the first
one, a black man is seen in the circus’s dunking booth with an enormous smile
on his face. This would not be shocking were it not for the fact that every face
in the crowd trying to put him in the water is white. Some kids even throw eggs
at the poor man, an action that creates raucous roars of laughter, even from
on-duty white police officers. Later, Jack’s manager uses the n-word to refer
to Jack’s next boxing opponent, but it’s difficult to assess the intent. The
manager is not a major character, so we do not have any evidence that he is
racist, and there’s no discriminatory follow-up to the remark. The scene just
moves on. Perhaps that’s just the way some people talked back in the day.
The Ring is a movie
that grows in power, and it is one of Hitchcock’s better films. It is both a fascinating
character study and a moving love story. Hitchcock gets great performances from
his cast, especially from Carl Brisson, who, I must admit, I had not heard of
prior to watching the film. Perhaps what I like most about the film is its unpredictability.
I like movies that avoid the standard good-guy/bad-guy set-up. In The Ring, we have two men in love with the
same woman, and neither man is the kind we actively root against. As the film
inched its way to its finale, I was pleased to find that I didn’t know how it
was going to end, and I was excited by the prospect of being surprised. In fact, I didn’t want either one to lose either
the match or Nelly. This is a rare and precious thing in a movie, and I hope
people take a chance on it. (on DVD)
3 and a half stars
*An interesting side note: There was a real boxer called "One Round" Gratton who boxed on his parents' fairground boxing show.
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