Cinema: The New Pictures: Feb. 14, 1938

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The typical opening shows a bitter quarrel between a woman and a man with nervously twitching eyes in a lonely country house by the sea. In the gray of the next morning, the Hitchcock cameras dwell lingeringly on jutting, misty cliffs, gently rolling seas, while shrill sea gulls insist that something is amiss. The lens finally comes to bear on an object the waves have been gently pushing up on the beach: the body of the woman, strangled to death by a raincoat belt. The audience knows the one distinguishing mark of the killer—those twitching eyes. This much is authentic Hitchcock. Unfortunately, during the tedious process of tracing the raincoat up & down lane and highroad, the audience is permitted to slide back off the edge of its seat.

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