This film is still incomplete--with only 3 of the original 6 reels being discovered recently in New Zealand. Yet despite this, Turner Classic Movies showed this partial film--mostly, I assume, because it's Alfred Hitchcock's first film. He was the assistant director, editor, set designer and and came up with the scenario.
When this film begins, you can see that that which remains still isn't in great shape in many places throughout the movie. Betty Compson plays dual roles--twin sisters, Nancy and Georgina. Nancy is wild and 'soulless' according to the film. Georgina is sweet and a homebody who lives with her alcoholic father and her mother on a country estate in England.
When Nancy comes to visit, she can't take the quietness and soon runs away. When this occurs, the script gets really, really silly. Her father chases after her and neither is seen of for a very long time. The mother dies and Georgina eventually meets up with one of Nancy's old boyfriends--who thinks she is Nancy. They fall in love.
At the same time, Nancy hangs out in Paris in a bohemian bar. One day, her now brain-addled father comes into the place and starts hanging out there--but neither recognizes the other. An old friend of the boyfriend who is back in England with Georgina sees Nancy drinking and carousing and he rushes back to England to tell the guy that his now fiancée is hanging out in a bar and acting crazy.
At this point, the third reel finishes and TCM describes in a few paragraphs what happens next. Believe me, it's confusing and stupid (not that the film already wasn't stupid and confusing). Apparently, Georgina wastes away and dies and her nice soul leaves her body and enters her wild sister--who then marries the nice man and settles down and lives happily ever after!! Huh? It takes three more reels to say this?! What you have is a very incomplete film with a plot that seems like it is more bad fan fiction than a credible movie. Unless you are insane about films (like me), I wouldn't bother with this one. Even if they one day find the other three reels, I'd still avoid this mess of a film.
When this film begins, you can see that that which remains still isn't in great shape in many places throughout the movie. Betty Compson plays dual roles--twin sisters, Nancy and Georgina. Nancy is wild and 'soulless' according to the film. Georgina is sweet and a homebody who lives with her alcoholic father and her mother on a country estate in England.
When Nancy comes to visit, she can't take the quietness and soon runs away. When this occurs, the script gets really, really silly. Her father chases after her and neither is seen of for a very long time. The mother dies and Georgina eventually meets up with one of Nancy's old boyfriends--who thinks she is Nancy. They fall in love.
At the same time, Nancy hangs out in Paris in a bohemian bar. One day, her now brain-addled father comes into the place and starts hanging out there--but neither recognizes the other. An old friend of the boyfriend who is back in England with Georgina sees Nancy drinking and carousing and he rushes back to England to tell the guy that his now fiancée is hanging out in a bar and acting crazy.
At this point, the third reel finishes and TCM describes in a few paragraphs what happens next. Believe me, it's confusing and stupid (not that the film already wasn't stupid and confusing). Apparently, Georgina wastes away and dies and her nice soul leaves her body and enters her wild sister--who then marries the nice man and settles down and lives happily ever after!! Huh? It takes three more reels to say this?! What you have is a very incomplete film with a plot that seems like it is more bad fan fiction than a credible movie. Unless you are insane about films (like me), I wouldn't bother with this one. Even if they one day find the other three reels, I'd still avoid this mess of a film.