The George Herman Hitchcock project, Chapter 3A: Champagne

Introduction

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2A and 2B


HITCHCOCK
(1928-1930)

It was an admirably busy time for Hitchcock.  He completed seven features and two short  films of varying genres, subject matter, and tone amongst the medium's most massive shift.  In the previous section, I'd covered The Farmer's Wife.  In this chapter I'll cover Champagne (light comedy), The Manxman (romantic melodrama), Blackmail (thriller), Juno and the Paycock (comedy/tragedy stage adaptation), and Murder! (a whodunit).  He also directed segments for the musicals Harmony Heaven and Elstree Calling.  AND he directed a German version of Murder! called Mary.  Sadly, these last three are unavailable for viewing.

He was wrapping up production on Blackmail when the producers came to him with the pitch to turn that silent film into Britain's very first sound feature.  So it was clear by that point, Hitch's previous films' financial successes were significant enough for the financiers to bank on him to deliver such a pivotal film.

Let's take these remaining features one by one:

Champagne (1928)

Hitchcock's next to last silent feature is a very light comedy.  Though Hitch dismisses it as "probably the lowest ebb in my output" (Truffaut 57), Champagne is much more relaxed than most of his earlier films.  Kind of goofy, a cheap sweet bubbly, a trifle that's aware of it's triviality.

A rich man is tired of his daughter's lavish partying lifestyle, so he decides to teach her a lesson and pretend that the family has lost all of their money in the stock market.  She's forced to get a job and be responsible to which she fails and succeeds at varying degrees until the ruse is revealed and she's a better person as a result.

That's the whole thing.  Not much actually happens, but some of the comedy is actually funny.  He has game actors (Betty Balfour, Jean Bradin, and Theo van Alten) whom are good with their close-ups.  The characters are all a bunch of shmoes, but they're clear and understandable enough to follow through the 85-minute runtime.  Balfour's character is much less of a coquette than any of the previous Hitchcock femmes, though she dreams up a surprise fantasy sequence wherein the bad guy physically overtakes her.

There are lovely bookend shots of champagne being emptied and action being seen through the bottom of the glass like so:

(Source)

And though there's no sound, the bounty of silent dialogue spoken throughout the film shows some level of subconscious(?) yearning for audio on Hitchcock's part.  Either that or he got a little lazy with this one, which he'd almost admitted.

(On a side note, the crummy DVD had terribly matched random classical music running throughout the film.  It distracted because it never fit any of the action and overlapped scenes and shots.  "Bolero" worked really well when it randomly came up, but that's probably because Ravel's composition feels so cinematic.)

Ultimately, the movie is paper thin, but should not be completely written off as a waste of time.

---

The Manxman (1929)

On the other hand, there's The Manxman.  Hitch had nothing nice to say about this one either.  And neither do I.

In what the great Hitchcock expert Donald Spoto described as "this relentlessly unhappy melodrama" (Spoto 19), a love triangle forms between three friends on the Isle of Man: a sailor, a judge, and a gaspingly irresponsible coquette.  The Flirt's been hooking up with the sailor for some time, but because he's poor he's not allowed to marry her.  So he leaves, declaring that he'll return with great wealth.  She promises him that she'll wait for his return.  She then almost immediately starts shagging his best friend, the judge.  A letter arrives saying that the sailor died at sea.  She declares her undying love for the judge.  Then (for reasons unexplained) the letter turns out not to be true.  The sailor returns home a success.  He gets the coquette's hand in marriage.  Neither the woman nor the judge have the fortitude to tell the sailor.  After the wedding, the coquette reveals that she's pregnant.  But it's not the sailor's child, it's the judge's!  And they still don't tell anyone!  The baby is born.  The sailor raises the kid.  The woman runs away.  She tries to kill herself.  Then everything is revealed in an interminably drawn out court sequence.

The best thing about this movie is that the Director of Photography's name is Jack Cox.  Actually Jack Cox was Hitch's DP eight times.  Jack Cox.

The male leads are from earlier Hitchcock films, each playing similar roles to their previous ones.  Pete the Sailor is played by Carl Brisson, who was the "good guy" from The Ring.  Malcolm Keen, the paranoid police boyfriend from the The Lodger plays Philip the Judge.  Anny Ondra who plays Kate is incredibly cute, but that doesn't distract from the fact that either her character is callous and daft or she's the true antagonist, destroying everything by taking no responsibility for her whims.

The film is frustratingly predictable.  I wound up unpacking five boxes of books while the story lumped along.  I described it to my wife as "The film before Hitchcock got his sh*t together."

---

Blackmail (1929)

The film wherein Hitchcock got his sh*t together.

Or to phrase it less crassly, Blackmail is of great artistic and historical interest.

As mentioned earlier, this was the first British sound film.  Unlike the US's Jazz Singer, Blackmail utilizes sound carefully, imaginatively, and effectively, much like Fritz Lang's M (Germany's first talkie).  There are long periods of silence where dialogue is unnecessary.  The word "knife" is repeated as a POV audio moment as a character mulls over her crime.  A bird chirps incessantly building up suspense.

There's great Expressionist-style high contrast lighting throughout the fast well-edited opening.  And there are fantastic distorted visuals throughout the British Museum chase at the climax.

(Source)

And there's this...

(Source)

...from a scene (34 minutes in) where it feels like Hitchcock has first pulled everything together:  blondes, sexuality, violence, suspense, morality, and questioning innocence.  Negligee and knives. The moment just clicks.  A birth of something new, taken from elements that were already there, like Pete Townsend discovering power chords.  I recommend clicking on the image to enlarge.  Along with the murdered child's balloon caught in electrical wires in Lang's M, this is one of the great visceral visual moments in the early sound era.

Oh yeah, there's a story in this film too.  PLOT SPOILERS HERE ON IN!

Alice (Anny Ondra, again, hot hot hot) ditches her detective boyfriend for another man; a horny artist that tries to take advantage of her.  He sexually assaults her, she defends herself with the above blade.  Then he quite dead.  She runs away.  The body is found.  While combing the scene the policeman-boyfriend finds her gloves.  He pockets the evidence, trying to shield her.  But there's a criminal who had witnessed her leaving the scene.  He blackmails both her and the policeman.  The policeman pins the murder on the blackmailer.  The police chase the blackmailer, who then falls to his death.  Alice goes to the police chief to confess, but their conversation is cut off.  And her boyfriend leads her away, her confession never delivered.

The film isn't perfect (it takes much too long to get going) but it's full of so many visual and auditory flourishes that it stands a full head over The Lodger.  But Blackmail's flourishes serve to bolster the storytelling of the film.  The aforementioned "knife" scene gets the viewer into Annie's head as she obsesses over her crime.  The heightened imagery of the chase sequence illustrates the twisted moral morass of the moment.

But I must stress this because it's an important part of Hitch's cinema:  In Blackmail, he is never asking us to meditate on society's ills.  He's crafting a piece of grand entertainment.  So if you like this particular flavor of cinematic ice cream, I recommend this film.

---

In Part B, I'll cover the last two films from this period, as well as George Herman Ruth's 1917 season.

TO BE CONTINUED...


Sources:
Spoto, Donald. The Art Of Alfred Hitchcock. Anchor Books, New York. 1992.
Truffaut, Francois. Hitchcock. Simon & Schuster, Paris. 1984.

I really gotta get out more

Can’t remember the last time I had such a lovely night as this.  Hung out with three happy brilliant beautiful ladies.  Ate a great burger.  Shopped at Amoeba Music.  Found street parking!  Walked around the neighborhood of my old drinking haunts in the neon Hollywood night.  Went to a new bar (Piano Bar) and was able to get a great seat.  Tried a new whisky, Ardbeg 10.  Shared some Oban 14 with Mona.  Caught up with friends.  Grooved to fantastic live music (Brother Sal!).  Saw an awesome award-winning TV star.  Took two freeways that I’d never travelled before and they were both EMPTY.  Saw the high rises of Downtown enveloped in fog.  Drove over the bridges of the Port of Los Angeles, the new DJ Shadow CD thundering over my car speakers.  This isn’t the literal order of events, but I’m remembering everything simultaneously.  It’s nice to get out of the condo once in a while.

[Ed.: I wrote this at 1:45am, 100% sober. Haven't edited a word. Will update with pics if or when possible.]

Single Malt Report: Bowmore 16yr 1994/2011 Signatory

What?! Two single malt reports in a row? Yep, just a little something to leave you with for the weekend...

Distillery: Bowmore
Age: 16 years 11 months - April '94 to March '11
Bottler: Signatory Un-Chillfiltered Collection
Maturation: bourbon hogsheads
Casks: 565+567
Bottle: 196 of 773
Region: Islay
Alcohol by Volume: 46%

Hope you appreciate the clean kitchen background

Here she is.  I will be sad but wiser when she is gone.  This was the first peaty Islay malt that I fully enjoyed (not just appreciated).

I purchased this bottle at the wonderland known as Royal Mile Whiskies during our May trip to London.  700mL (UK size) as opposed to 750mL.

There's no artificial coloring and no chillfiltering.  Most of the major distillers chillfilter their whiskies in order to keep them clear-looking through all kinds of temperatures.  Whiskies that are not chillfiltered cloud up in cooler temperatures or when cold water is added to them.  I love when that happens, so I'm a fan of the un-chillfiltered whiskies.

Established in 1988 by Andrew Symington, Signatory is an independent family-run bottler that pioneered single cask bottlings.  Good on 'em, because I've really enjoyed following them and their releases.  In 2002 they actually bought the Edradour distillery from Pernod Ricard, but more on that when I report on an Edradour.

Back to this Bowmore.

As you might be able to see in the picture, the natural color of this whiskey isn't gold or copper or any of the usual tinted whisky tones.  Instead the shade sits somewhere between ginger ale and chardonnay.

When sampled neat, the nose is softly peated, medicinal (but less salty/briny than Laphroaig), and has a little cowhide leather.  The palate is peat forward but smooth.  Light cream and sweet potatoes.  The finish is hot and cayenne peppery.  It takes a second to sneak up on you, but then it hangs out for a while.

With a few drips of water, the oils release but there's a minimum of clouding.  The peat and medicine almost disappear from the nose, and some menthol opens up.  Conversely, in the palate, the peat smoke is all that remains.  Everything else is gone.  The finish is cooler, but still present with some lingering black pepper.

I really recommend this with sea-salted dark chocolate.  There are only two or three more drams left in the bottle and they will all be partnered with that dessert.

You can compare this with the notes on the three Bowmores reported on two weeks ago.  But frankly, this one wins.

Sadly, I can't find this bottling online anywhere in the world (Master of Malt has a younger batch of '94).  So I guess I swiped this one just in time.  Here's how the pricing is built: (Price - VAT + Shipping) * (conversion rate in May 2011).

Heck, if you can find it, it's a treasure.

Pricing - Bargain at $70
Rating - 93

Single Malt Report: Laphroaig 10yr

Distillery: Laphroaig
Age: 10 years
Maturation: bourbon barrels
Region: Islay
Alcohol by Volume: 43% (US)

Ah, Le-Froyg.  I had no intention of reporting on you.  Hell, I had no intention of ever drinking you again.  But I am because I did.

I'd tried Laphroaig twice about four years ago with two different sets of friends.  Both times I wanted to wash my face after sipping this Islay.  The first sensation that came to my mind was "it's like drinking piss out of an ashtray. With iodine."  Never again.  Never ever ever again.

So there I was, sitting at the Belmont Brewing Company bar last night, watching a few innings of the World Series.  I glanced at their whisky shelf......not bad considering that it's a beer place.  I didn't want the two usual Glens.  Lagavulin 16, splendid though it may be, was a little rich for my wallet.  Strathisla, interesting.  Laphroaig.  Hmmm, I'll be here for a while...maybe I could add a little water?

The bartender brought me the BIGGEST WHISKY POUR that I have ever received at a bar.  Thank you, Melissa.  I looked at the drink.

Now I'm really in for it.

I took a sip.

Hmm.  I took another sip.

---

Here are the tasting notes that I typed furiously into my Blackberry:

(NEAT)
Color - Gold
Nose - Wet peat, burning plastic, wood embers, Atlantic Ocean, ash at the end of a fire, an evening in a small town on the British Isles
Palate - Menthol, cinammon, brown sugar, salty peat smoke, less iodine than I remember
Finish - Long, sweet but also dry (is that possible?)
Your burps will taste like cigarettes.

(W/ WATER)
Nose - Sweetness moves to the fore, maybe even maraschino cherries?, much less peat
Palate - Menthol has vanished, iodine gone, fire put out, just wet peat and a bit of sweet, a mite of sourness too (Ed.: How lyrical of me.)
Finish - Hushed

---

I finished the big drink without a problem.  I'm such a big boy.

The massive nose and palate are very specific to this single malt.  As I'd mentioned in my big Bowmore report, the Laphroaig distillery (similar to its neighbors Ardbeg and Lagavulin) dries their barley out for a long period of time under salty peat smoke.  Through this peating process and the spirit's contact with the American oak of the bourbon barrels this strange chemical miracle plays out.

Laphroaig's flavor is so intense that it can mute anything else you have over the next half hour (which is really unique for a whisky at 40% ABV).  So if you want to follow it with something, don't do another whisky because you might not taste it.  I had the brewery's bitterest ale afterwards.  This big Islay cut through the bitterness revealing everything else that was going on with the ale.

Do I recommend Le-Froyg?  Unless either you've enjoyed other peaty malts or you chew cigarettes for breakfast, the answer is no.  When you do try it for the first time, add about a teaspoon of water (or more, depending on the pour).  But first, try it neat.  Then curse me for suggesting so.

Pricing - Bargain! at $35-45  (Ed. note, 1/1/14: oh, for the days when it was $35)
Rating - 87

We own this

In case you missed my rant two weeks ago, Kristen and I are now the proud owners of a 2-bedroom 2-bathroom condo in Long Beach.  The move has been exhausting.  As I had told my folks, this is the hardest either of us have worked on something.  Ever.  Has all of that hard work been worth it?  I don't know yet.

I'm going to avoid talking about the financial side of things.  It's sufficient to state that the loan and escrow process has been upsetting.  K and I did everything correctly, while everyone on the other side did not.  I am unable to write about it further in order to avoid rage-quitting this post.

I don't think we realized that were purchasing a fixer-upper for our first home.  It's like getting an abused dog from the kennel.  This place has been treated terribly by all of its previous owners.  We plan to be the first ones to really care for it.  And like a child (metaphor switch!), it will take over our lives for quite some time.  That wasn't the intent, but that's what we've got.  Every hour we're learning something new.

Last week we soaked, scraped, sanded, dusted, and painted the ceilings. Where they had once been crumbly cottage-cheese-looking "popcorn" ceilings, they're now smooth and flat.  Except in the second bedroom (heretofore known as The Office) where we discovered a significant mold infestation.  Speaking of significant infestations, the walls are full of termites.  Both of these problems should have been noted by our professional inspectors.  They were not.

We'll be pulling down all of the painted-over wallpaper, killing the mold, and repainting the walls and ceiling.  We're also trying to figure out how our HOA handles termite issues since the bugs don't just hang out in one place.  And the building is made of wood.  We've been told a few times, "Don't worry, now that the weather has cooled the swarmers won't come out of the walls."  Yeah, that's not really the point now, is it?

We've cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.  Still finding chunks of food(?) from previous occupants.  We pulled out two sets of cabinets and replaced them with a fridge, washer, and dryer.  The fridge arrived without a connecting hose and the washer/dryer had the wrong stacking kit.  This resulted in multiple visits from the delivery crews.

The plumber, a great guy from Guardian Plumbing, has been here three times because there are issues with almost all of the plumbing in the unit.  But we've been lucky that the plumber has been nice.

The Verizon tech came by to install the cable, phones, and Internet.  For a one television home, he said it takes 2 to 3 hours.  It took over eight hours here.  He said that was a record for him.  The building is old, its phone box is outdated, and the cable installation had been done incorrectly and wastefully multiple times in the past.

Our actual move took place on Sunday.  We were going to move ourselves, but due to ongoing physical pain we chose to hire folks.  (Thank you, Kristen, for suggesting out loud exactly what I was thinking.)  We wouldn't have been able to haul that stuff on our own.  It took the movers all day to complete the job.

It's now Tuesday and despite hours of work, we're less than halfway through the boxes.  The great news about the place is that it's incredibly spacious.  About 50% more floor space than our apartment.  But it has very little storage.  Closets and cabinets are almost non-existant, so we'll need to be creative to figure out where everything's going.  In the meantime the place is labyrinthine, about which neither of us are happy.  It makes us feel like hoarding squatters.

The place is full of gives and takes.  The street noise is significant because the windows are poor.  But the constant ocean breeze is wonderful.  The cabinets, counters, and fixtures are stupendously ugly.  But the sunlight is so beautiful, it's the exact opposite of our dark apartment.  I have to figure out how to cook on an inferior electric stove.  But the stove works!  We overlook an Albertsons parking lot.  But when the sky clears we can see Catalina and the mountains.  The wandering junkie quotient has tripled.  But we're a 15 minute walk to the beach.  It's not Los Angeles.  And it's not Los Angeles.

We're restarting our lives this week.  Kristen's commute has been shortened by 90%, thirty miles to three.  I woke up before the sun to go to the gym for the first time in two weeks.  Today will be the first  LBC TJ's run for groceries.  And I'm trying to get a blog post out from time to time!

I'm sure that there's some advice to dole out here, but we're not on the other side of this, yet...

Getting rid of baseball cards

I gave up 17,000 baseball cards last week.  Seventeen thousand.

Let's break this down, list-style:

1. Reasoning – This massive stash had been holed up in my old bedroom in Santa Barbara.  My mom was in the process of putting her home on the market, so this had to be cleared out of the house along with other old belongings.

Then the boxes took up space in my Accord’s trunk since Kristen and I didn’t have room for them in our apartment.  When we decided to move, the cards had to go due to the sheer weight and space they took up.

2. Quantity – 95% of these cards were commons, thus the bulk.  And at least half of them were from my efforts to assemble Topps sets (1986, 1987, 1992, etc.)  The other 5% were “semi-stars” (a mixed blessing of a label if there ever was one) of which I’d already had double or triples.

3. Finance – These cards made up 67% of my collection, but less than 25% of its value.  This lot’s High book value was about $1200.  Its Low book value – or the price one should expect to sell – was $600.

I failed to sell it for $100.

One month of craiglist posts went nowhere.  My sale price started at $200 with all sorts of sweeteners: better cards, unopened packs, and video games.  No takers.  Week after week, I dropped the price.  $175, $150, $125, $100.

Simultaneously, I listed the same lot on eBay for a few rounds, starting at $150.  eBay and PayPal would take a cut but I didn’t mind.  Even at a Buy It Now price of $100, drew nothing.  I actually wound up taking a hit of a couple bucks.

4. Donation – Long before I attempted to sell the cards, I had made a dozen phone calls and emails around Los Angeles to see what organization would accept the cards as an in-kind or re-sale donation.  Children’s hospitals?  Goodwill?  Religious centers?  Shelters?  Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  Not only were these cards unsellable, but I couldn't give them away to a non-profit because the batch was virtually valueless and required labor to move and process.

5. Emotional value – I’d thought that getting rid of these would be difficult.  A shedding, abandoning of my childhood.  But really, most of them were acquired as I was assembling sets which was actually done in 2002, post-college.  No baby was I then, just unemployed and wasting time.

So I felt nothing.  In fact they became a burden as they blocked half of my trunk. They were always there, slamming around every time I took a right turn. When I walked to my car, I kept picturing those 3200-count boxes taking up space.  If I could only get rid of them, I would be free of ballast.

With two weeks remaining before the move, I tossed up a hail mary (or Baruch Hashem).  I hit up Collectibles With Causes California which I found via Google searches.  They were quick to respond and very friendly.  A couple of phone calls and emails later, a laid-back buzzcut guy in a big white Ford traded me 1 donation receipt for 17,000 cards.

As the pickup drove away, I was surprised that I didn’t feel wistful; just thankful that my car was 100 pounds lighter and that there was one less thing to do for the big move.

---

In the larger picture, the collections market is dead.  If no one even bites at $100 or makes a counter offer – hell, I would have taken $50 – for 17,000 cards AND if no donation center will take them because they know that they can’t sell them, then all of that cardboard is basically valueless outside of the $5-$10 in recycling redemption value.

Actually, while I was asking a card dealer for advice about this lot, he offered me $15 in case nothing else worked out.  A $15 offer thus establishes the actual Low bid value, not $600.  One could also argue that it represents the High value as well.

At some point I’d like to do a follow-up post about collectables.  I’ve been a collector of different kinds of stuff throughout my life.  And I know some hoarders pretty well; they're a very special breed of collector.  We hold onto things from the past, important to us but worthless to others, and I really don't know why.

The George Herman Hitchcock project, Chapter 2B: The Ring

Introduction

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2A:


HITCHCOCK
(1927-1928)
continuing from Chapter 2A...

The Ring (1928)

After Downhill and Easy Virtue, Hitchcock directed another drama, The Ring.  Sadly it has nothing to do with the future horror series or vice versa.  It's a love-triangle tale about two boxers (wait, there's more!) and a woman.

Not much happens over the 89 minute cut, goodness knows how the 116 minute UK cut played out.  The events are simple.  Jack is a local boxer who fights in front of small crowds (think Rocky Balboa as a carnival attraction).  Nellie's his girl.  Bob is a world-class boxer who has a crush on Nellie.  He fights Jack and defeats him.  He hires Jack to spar with him, but really just wants to get his gloves on Nellie.  Jack and Nellie get married, but when their marriage goes sour she runs off with Bob.  Jack gets back at Bob by fighting him at Albert Hall.  During the match Nellie sees Jack getting his butt kicked, so she goes back to his side of the ring.  Jack is instantly Popeye-ed and defeats Bob.

It's edited at a good pace, but not much seems to happen.  There are no surprises or twists.  The knockout at the end doesn't make any sense.  There's a quick final scene that at best is unnecessary and at worst deflates whatever emotional/sexual tension that had existed in the film.  The long shots of the boxing matches look great, but then Hitch intercuts awkward melodramatic close-ups that don't match the action.

On the positive side, there are a lot of great double-exposure shots.  Plus there's a fantastic time-lapse shot of champagne going flat.  It not only serves to telescope time, but also serves as a metaphor for the moment when the marriage goes flat.

The male leads seem to have gotten their direction switched.  Jack is whiny, spastic, and vengeful while Bob is calm and friendly.  Nellie on the other hand is another example of an early-Hitchcock flirty destructive coquette.  She's eyeballing Bob from the first moment, but marries Jack anyway, then leaves him for Bob.  It's unclear what her character's values or intentions are other than to be a jerk.  This in turn makes it even more challenging for the viewer to care what happens next.

So what I'm saying is:  Where are the thrills, Alfred?

---

The Farmer's Wife (1928)

The thrills are not here.

The Farmer's Wife is, I think, a comedy.  I don't know.  I couldn't finish it.

It starts off looking like a drama.  An idyllic farm.  The farmer's wife has died.  As the farmer sits in his chair staring off into space, Hitchcock lingers on his face.  Over and over and over.  I began to wonder if this was going to be some sort of awesome Scandinavian-style film about a man pondering existence.  But, nope, suddenly it's a comedy!  Whee!  Thirza Tapper, Churdles Ash, and Dick Cooker (actual character names) run around the house mugging and hamming and falling down.  The farmer is pushed to find a new bride, so he invites over All the Single Ladies for a party at which point they all make F*** Me eyes at him.  But when he later professes his humble marital hopes, they're all offended.  He then responds by making fun of how old, fat, and ugly they are.

I fell asleep right there, 40 minutes in.  I was irritated about how this was beginning turn into a proto-Sandler film: "You're fat and ugly.  Wackety Shmackety!  Oh no, my pants are falling down!"  I was disappointed in the abrupt tonal changes.  The ending was as obvious as a turd in the pool.  And the poorly chosen film score was lulling, sleepy sleepy sleepy.

When I woke up and saw the DVD sitting there, I went back to sleep.

I understand the class themes that are confronted when he ultimately marries his housekeeper, but that doesn't negate the fact that the rest of the hired help act like they're mentally disabled.  Add to that my disappointment that Alfred Hitchcock was responsible------

It's amongst the five worst silent films that I've ever seen.  It's even worse than all of the films starring this guy:

---

Hitchcock achieved a certain level of attention with the artistic and financial success of The Lodger, yet followed it with four films fully outside that thriller genre.  None of them lost money, but none of them garnered any attention.  One can applaud him for the efforts, his attempts to expand his craft.  But as a viewer, one yearns to see him take on a subject ripe for suspense, twists, and the macabre.  Would such a film be on the horizon?


Sources:
Spoto, Donald. The Dark Side Of Genius: The Life Of Alfred Hitchcock. De Capo Press, New York. 1999.
Truffaut, Francois. Hitchcock. Simon & Schuster, Paris. 1984.

---

RUTH
(1916)

Source: Major League Baseball

As Hitchcock was experiencing moderate box office success, while treading water (at best) artistically, after his initial successes, Ruth erupted onto the baseball scene, albeit differently than what would later make him famous.

Ruth was the best left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball in 1916.  It really did happen that quickly.  While Grover Cleveland Alexander was decimating the NL, Ruth and Walter Johnson were nautical leagues ahead of every other pitcher in the AL.

Ruth was first in ERA, first in Opponent Batting Average, first in shutouts, and third in strikeouts.  In advanced stats, he was first in Advanced ERA+ and led pitchers in Wins Above Replacement.  This wasn't due to a small statistical sample size since he led the league in games started and was third in innings pitched.

He also won his very first World Series ring as the Red Sox beat the Brooklyn Robins four games to one.  In Game Two, Ruth pitched a 14-inning complete game, a World Series record that still stands today.  Ruth's only weakness was his lack of control.  Like everything else about him, Ruth's fastball was big.  Though he'd learned to mix in an off-speed pitch from time to time, batters were tied up by the erratic hammer.

Walter Johnson was the best pitcher of the decade and has been considered by many to be the greatest of all time.  Johnson's only weakness in 1916 was Babe Ruth.  They faced each other five times, Ruth went 5-0.  Ruth actually won six in a row against The Big Train, something no other pitcher ever accomplished.

Johnson and Ruth each allowed zero home runs for the entire season.  Meanwhile, Ruth's crowd-silencing home run feats from the previous season didn't repeat in 1916.  He did hit three home runs, which was tied for the best on the team (even though he played in only 43% of their games).  But all of his batting statistics dropped off.

His focus was on his pitching (and hookers and blended whiskey, but I digress) which now garnered attention and provided his first championship ring.  Like Hitchcock, Ruth was succeeding outside what had first caught him high regard.  But while Ruth's acclaim was much larger much quicker, Hitch would venture back to his bailiwick sooner......in Chapter 3: Champagne.


Sources:
Creamer, Robert. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. Simon & Schuster, New York. 1974.
Jenkinson, Bill. Baseball's Ultimate Power: Ranking the All-Time Greatest Distance Home Run Hitters. Lyons Press. 2010.
Jenkinson, Bill. The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs: Recrowning Baseball's Greatest Slugger. Carrol & Graf. 2007.
Montville, Leigh. The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth. Broadway Books, New York. 2006.