HANGMAN'S HOUSE (1928)
Starring: Victor McLaglen, June Collyer, Earle Foxe, Larry Kent, Hobart Bosworth
Writer: Philip Klein, from a scenario by Marion Orth (based on the novel by Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne)
Cinematography: George Schneiderman
Editing: Margaret Clancey
Music: SILENT (contemporary score by Tim Curran)
B&W, 1h 11m. 1.33:1 presentation.
Released on: May 13, 1928 by Fox Film Corporation.
My experience: Ford at Fox DVD box set.
Hangman's House is a bit of a transitional affair for John Ford. It was his final silent feature film before Hollywood went all in for sound (his previous film, Four Sons, had a music and effects track but that was done after filming ended). It's entertaining enough, and has some nice touches from the master, who is obviously enjoying being able to portray his beloved Ireland once more. I wasn't able to fully immerse myself in this one as I had for his previous venture. It's a short film at just over 70 minutes, and while it held my attention for the most part, I did find myself checking to see how much longer it was until the end of the film.
I think part of the issue I had was that Ford chose to devote equal attention to our three leads, and the divided attention, at least for me, led to difficulties in fully immersing myself into the plot. The story, such as it is, consists of the following: French Legionnaire commander Hogan (Victor McLaglen) is an Irish patriot who has a bounty on his head at home (it's not stated outright, but it's pretty clear he's a top man in the IRA). Upon arriving at base camp after a patrol he is given a letter, and after reading it hightails it back home ... to kill a man (buh buh BUM!!!). After this prelude, we are introduced to erstwhile lovers Dermot McDermot (Larry Kent) and Connaught O'Brien (June Collyer), whose father Lord Justice O'Brien (Hobart Bosworth) has presided over many hangings and is hated by the local populace. He who has spent his life judging others finds himself inching closer to his own Judgment Day, as he only has a short while to live before he expires.
Before he shuffles off his mortal coil, he basically gaslights his own daughter into marrying John D'Arcy (Earle Foxe), a supreme douchebag who is only in it for the O'Brien fortune and is known throughout Ireland as an informer. Hogan returns back home only to be ratted out to the British constabulary during a horse race in which D'Arcy has bet everything against Connaught's horse, The Bard. If we didn't know D'Arcy was no good, we now find out as he shoots the horse down in cold blood after it wins the race. From thereon in our three male leads are on a collision course with destiny, and everything comes to a head at the titular mansion.
Hangman's House may be most famous nowadays for being the earliest featured appearance of John Wayne in a Ford film, and indeed he can be seen during the St. Stephen's race, whooping and hollering up a storm. It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it part approximately 39 minutes in, but even then his onscreen magnetism draws your attention.
As to the film proper: there are some really nice cinematic touches, and the photography is sublime, yet it almost seems as if Ford half-assed this film. Parts of it are superior, and then there are times when it seems as if the master is directing in his sleep, with some scenes seeming as if they were filmed by your average journeyman director who is solely in it because that's what the studio assigned him to. Or perhaps I'm wishing too much for every Ford feature to be "classic Ford" -- an assumption which is entirely unrealistic.
At any rate, we start off nicely in the O'Brien mansion, as we see Lord Justice O'Brien sitting in front of a fire, experiencing pangs of conscience after realizing his time on Earth is ticking away. We see him from behind the fire, with the flames flickering before him (a cinematic representation of the hellfire he will soon find himself subsumed in?). Masterfully, Ford has chosen to have over the character's shoulder a painting of him in full Lord Justice regalia, staring intensely down at his living avatar as a constant reminder as to what got him in this position. When we change camera angles, we view the fire from O'Brien's p.o.v., and what he sees is horrifying indeed, as we witness a very expressionistic impression of a hanging in silhouette, followed by floating, disembodied, blindfolded heads of some of the men he sent to their deaths, and ending in a montage of the screaming, jeering crowds of the families by whose hand he has destroyed. This combination of both expressionism and Eisensteinian montage show Ford at the top of his game, and deftly keeping up to date with, and putting his own distinctive stamp on, what was then the latest in cinematic technique.
Later in the film, Ford films O'Brien's death in a simple yet effective way. We see O'Brien sitting in front of the fire again, this time in profile with his hand on his walking stick. As he expires, the frame is blurred out with the exception of an iris around the chair in which he sits. His movement slows, then stops. His handkerchief drops from his hand, followed by the stick, and in short order his hand. A man who gave no thought to the deaths of others in his life has his own existence snuffed out impersonally and without anyone seeing his face. A wonderful cinematic expression, and a fitting end to his character.
Ford also makes nice use out of shadows and fog, first when Hogan returns to Ireland, crossing the fields, and later on when Dermot McDermot (that name, though!) and Connaught make their way through the marshes to Hogan's hideaway. These marshes, by the way, look like they could very well have been reused sets from F.W. Murnau's 1927 masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. If so, this would mark the second straight film for which Ford reused Murnau's sets (actually done by Rochus Gliese); in Four Sons, the New York City street was used (and shot in much the same way as it was in the German director's film). Another thing I noticed about Hangman's House is that it used many more closeups than usual for a Ford film, as the director usually preferred long shots, moving in to medium when he felt the situation called for it. He was able to work with some wonderfully expressive faces in this film, so perhaps that played into it. The climactic scene, which involves a burning mansion, is well done (with the exception of the fact it was obviously shot at night and some reaction shots look to have been filmed during the day).
We need to talk about Earle Foxe for a moment. I had not heard of him before I started going through Ford's oeuvre, and after a quick scour of IMDb, apart from a small role in Mary of Scotland and uncredited roles in The Informer and My Darling Clementine, he never worked with Ford again. In fact most of his film roles after 1928 were miniscule. I'm not sure if his voice didn't pick up well by early microphones, or if it was because he founded and was president of a military academy from 1928 onwards (Foxe was a veteran of WWI), but regardless, in the three Ford films in which he starred, he was fantastic. I mean this in the best possible way, but he makes for a great villain in that he had the kind of face you just want to punch. In Upstream, he plays an egotistical, untalented actor who lets fame go to his head; in Four Sons, a smaller role, he is a cold and sadistic military man; and in Hangman's House he plays a dissolute, petulant, cowardly man whose inner life shines on his face. It's a fantastic silent film performance.
This is the first surviving John Ford film in which Victor McLaglen appeared, and there would be many more to follow. Here he is almost a revelation, being young, sturdy and full of life, a far cry from his Oscar-winning Gypo Nolan from The Informer just seven years later. POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR A 95-YEAR OLD MOVIE: for those who are wondering why Hogan looks sad and defeated at the end of the film, after defeating his enemy and seeing the good guy get the girl, this is my take: he finds fleeting joy in this, but realizes at the end of the day that nothing he does will ever bring his sister back. END OF SPOILERS.
After sitting with this film for a little bit, I'm inclined to give it more leeway than I had previously. While I still think the film's focus is somewhat scattered, and parts of it look phoned in, Hangman's House -- while still a minor entry in the Ford canon -- is still a solid silent film with more to recommend to it than your average pre-Vitaphone melodrama. Ford appropriates some key silent film techniques like expressionism and montage, and delivers a decent enough time-waster.
It was with the arrival of sound that Ford truly came into his own and began forging new paths as a director. While there would be growing pains, he was well and truly on his way to becoming John Ford.
Six and a half vile villains out of ten.
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