When Boys Leave Home

Original title: Downhill

19271927
Not RatedNot Rated
1h 14min

Downhill (1927)

Adventure Drama Thriller

Public schoolboy Roddy Berwick is expelled from school when he takes the blame for a friend's charge and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures.Public schoolboy Roddy Berwick is expelled from school when he takes the blame for a friend's charge and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures.Public schoolboy Roddy Berwick is expelled from school when he takes the blame for a friend's charge and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures.

Director
- Alfred Hitchcock
Writers
- Constance Collier(play "Down Hill")
- Ivor Novello(play "Down Hill")
- Eliot Stannard(scenario)
Stars

See production, box office & company info

See production, box office & company info

See more at IMDbPro

Ivor Novello in Downhill (1927)

Annette Benson and Robin Irvine in Downhill (1927)

Annette Benson and Ivor Novello in Downhill (1927)

Downhill (1927)

Downhill (1927)

Annette Benson in Downhill (1927)

Ivor Novello in Downhill (1927)

Downhill (1927)

Norman McKinnel and Ivor Novello in Downhill (1927)

Ivor Novello in Downhill (1927)

Downhill (1927)

Ivor Novello in Downhill (1927)

Director
- Alfred Hitchcock
Writers
- Constance Collier(play "Down Hill")
- Ivor Novello(play "Down Hill")
- Eliot Stannard(scenario)
All cast & crew
See more cast details at IMDbPro

The Ring

6.2

Easy Virtue

5.6

The Pleasure Garden

5.9

The Pleasure Garden

The Farmer's Wife

5.9

The Farmer's Wife

The Manxman

6.2

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

7.3

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

Champagne

5.5

Murder!

6.4

The Skin Game

5.8

Blackmail

7.0

Mary

6.0

Number 17

5.8

Public schoolboy Roddy Berwick is expelled from school when he takes the blame for a friend's charge and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures. —Col Needham <col@imdb.com>

schoolboy actor father son relationship false accusation based on play 69 more

Taglines
- A College Hero round whom is woven a picture of Love and Treachery. (Print ad- The recorder ((Port Pirie, South Australia)) 3 July 1928)
Genres
Certificate
- Not Rated
Parents guide

Trivia
When Alfred Hitchcock looked back on this film, he was quite critical of it and felt that the symbolism he used was a touch too obvious.

Goofs
When Roddy and the girl are dancing in the candy shop, a gramophone record of a tune called "I want money" is shown. It's on the old "WINNER" label. In a flash back, we see it once again playing on the record player, but in a further flashback, in a montage, the record has become a "His Master's Voice" disc.

Quotes
[first title card]
Title Card: Here is a tale of two school-boys who made a pact of loyalty. One of them kept it - at a price.

Connections
Featured in Shepperton Babylon (2005)

Soundtracks
I Want Some Money
Words by Herbert Rule & Fred Holt.
Music by L. Silberman.
Played on the gramophone machine by Mabel; even though Downhill is a silent film, the accompanying music would have referenced this song as it underscores elements of the plot.

Top review

Downhill review

After playing a suspected killer for Hitchcock in The Lodger, Ivor Novello suffers once more as a particularly unconvincing schoolboy whose episodic decline into poverty after accepting the blame for impregnating one of those Olde Bunne Shoppe floozies is symbolised by his descent of stairs and escalators and by lift (this being 1927, Hitch is deprived of the opportunity of showing us his star morosely flushing a toilet after yet another setback). Not typical Hitchcock by a long stretch, but the occasional visual flourish is just about enough to hold our interest.

helpful•1

0

JoeytheBrit
Jun 30, 2020

Release date
- 1928 (United States)
Country of origin
- United Kingdom
Language
- English
Also known as
- Downhill
Filming locations
- Maida Vale Underground Station, Maida Vale, London, England, UK
Production company
- Gainsborough Pictures
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Runtime
- 1h 14min
Sound mix
- Silent
Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1

Review: Alfred Hitchcock's "The Lodger" (1927); Criterion Collection Blu-ray Special Edition

Jun 29Cinemaretro.com

David Reviews Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog [Criterion Blu-Ray Review]

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Downhill (1927)

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