Cinema
A Cottage on Dartmoor
Anthony Asquith · 1929
Synopsis
A convict escapes from Dartmoor prison and runs across the moor. We go back in time: Joe is a barber's assistant in a small Devon town and works alongside Sally, the salon's manicurist, whom he loves and who does not love him. Harry, a farmer who is a client of the shop, courts her, and she welcomes him willingly. One evening, Joe follows them to the cinema, sits in the row behind, and watches them watching the film while the audience laughs.
Context
The film was shot as a silent in the Welwyn studio, opened the year before, co-produced with a Swedish company, and was then given a talking scene, a synchronized score and sound effects. Its most quoted scene takes place in a cinema: a Harold Lloyd comedy is first shown, accompanied by an orchestra, and the audience laughs; then comes a talking film, and the auditorium freezes. Everything can be read on the faces. The fast editing recalls Eisenstein and Pudovkin, the lighting German Expressionism, which its author had discovered at the London Film Society. The director appears among the spectators, wearing glasses.
Who it is for
About one hour twenty-five. The restored print, released on video in 2008, is silent, with intertitles and a new score by Stephen Horne; everything depends on the looks exchanged.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by the British Film Institute as one of the very last British silent films, it was released in 1929 with a dialogue scene added.
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