Restoration and home video releases
- Lost and found: biblical themes in modern story of sin and salvation
- The Master’s first film: yet to be released in its restored original version
- All currently available viewing copies are an outright disappointment
- They’re all of battered, badly edited prints, but hope is on the horizon
- Contrary to popular belief, the restoration is NOT in the public domain
- This hasn’t stopped cheap bootlegs flooding the market worldwide
Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.
Part 1: Production
“The Labyrinth of Passion” Italian poster
Contents
- Two weeds, one flower
- Home video releases
- The outlook is rosy
- Pleasure in the public domain
- Related articles
Two weeds, one flower
An unrestored Virginia Valli prays for salvation in and for The Pleasure Garden
The Pleasure Garden’s trade show length was 7,508 feet but was pruned further by the time of its British public release to 6,458 feet. The 6,788-foot restoration, with its original tinting scheme, wholly supersedes the two incomplete B&W versions which have been circulating for years. Both can be traced back to the same now-lost original negative.
One version is thanks to infamous US film collector Raymond Rohauer, who, with his customary conceit and faux-copyright-grabbing greed, re-edited a 16mm print and replaced all the beautiful credits and intertitles with plain, modern paraphrased ones. Don’t forget: trained title designer Hitch literally had a hand in the originals, but Rohauer’s arrogance knew no bounds. Executed in 1981, Rohauer’s hack job is more than ably scored by Lee Erwin on theatre organ; in fact, the music is the only decent thing about it.
The second version derives from a preserved, longer but still-edited B&W nitrate print from the BFI, which retains the original titles. Each version contains footage missing from the other, and both are missing additional footage included in the restored version.
Everlasting love? Miles Mander and Virginia Valli honeymoon on Lake Como in Italy, where the film’s title is Il labirinto delle passioni (The labyrinth of passions).
Most bootlegs feature a blurry copy of Rohauer’s redux, VHS-recorded from Japanese TV with Japanese subtitles throughout and the score missing. Its original source had a PAL encode and for broadcast was converted to NTSC by repeating every fifth frame. Other boots feature the BFI print, via an access copy supplied to the Munich Film Museum and originally scored by Aljoscha Zimmermann. That version was also broadcast on TV and copied by some bright spark to VHS, from whence most other bootleg transfers originate, though again most are silent. As it was subtitled in German, it’s often erroneously referred to as the “German version” though obviously it has no resemblance to the much longer film actually seen there in the 1920s, which was also fully tinted and had German intertitles.
Both spurious copies were transferred at the too-fast sound speed of 24fps (the “German version” has additional 4% PAL speedup = 25fps) and clock in at around 60 and 67 minutes respectively. They’re equally rife with damage and poor resolution, only compounding the confusing gaps and logic holes in the narrative. Yes, you can follow the basic framework of the plot, but heaven forbid you should really get the chance to admire or appreciate the artistry of Hitchcock and his talented cast and crew.
On the other hand, the 2012 restoration is transferred at a far more natural 20fps and runs for over 90 minutes. Newly scored by Daniel Patrick Cohen, so far it’s only available for live screenings. Drawing on five archive prints, four of them early nitrate, the transformative result breathes totally new life into this long-neglected masterpiece. I’ve seen it performed live twice now, in the UK and Italy, and a home video release can’t come soon enough. Everyone deserves to sample the delights of this particular garden, but in the meantime here’s a tantalising taste:
“More than any other of Hitchcock’s silent films, The Pleasure Garden has been transformed by restoration. An international search for material revealed copies held in France, the Netherlands, the United States as well as the BFI National Archive. For many years The Pleasure Garden had circulated in what appeared to be two versions, perhaps representing two different releases but close comparison at the BFI of the five copies, four of them original nitrate prints, meant that we could trace them all back to the same negative.
Major narrative strands and twists have now been re-integrated making it possible to reconstruct, as fully as possible, the original edit and using the best of these sources we have been able to achieve a huge improvement in image quality. This was made possible by the restoration team’s delicate scanning, over several months, of 20 reels of fragile nitrate, totalling more than 17,500 feet. The colour scheme of The Pleasure Garden is particularly complex. The tints and tones of the nitrate copies differed but the colours of the restoration have been chosen to match the print in the BFI National Archive. Finally, the artwork and text of the intertitles have been completely restored.” – BFI programme notes
Any upcoming worldwide screenings, with an improvised piano accompaniment unless stated otherwise, are listed here.
Home video releases
French DVD
There have only been two authorised DVDs to date, from the UK and France, with both featuring a passable transfer of the Rohauer version. They’re sans Japanese subtitles of course but still run at sound speed. The scoreless B&W French DVD was sold with a magazine about the film and as an extra has Mary with French subtitles. Meanwhile, the superior UK disc’s feature has added attractive but specious tinting and the organ score, and extras consisting of an intro by film historian Charles Barr (3:41), what survives of two Hitch interviews for Granada TV’s Cinema from May 1966 (40:46; also on The 39 Steps Criterion reissue) and November 1969 (7:48), and a brief slideshow (0:25). There are comparative DVD screenshots of the four circulating transfers at the invaluable Hitchcock Zone.
- UK: Network DVD (2008), also in Network 10-DVD/11-film H: The British Years (2008)
- France Journaux.fr 2on1 DVD/eBay (2007, no score) w/Mary | info
Truth is, The Pleasure Garden is currently a sheer disappointment on home video. Thankfully it’s an anomaly and most other official releases of British Hitchcocks are as good as they can be at present – which in most cases is rather brilliant. If you’re really keen to see the film or acquire it anyway as part of Network’s otherwise generally excellent British Years set, I strongly advise you to wait for the restored version. Speaking of which…
He’s a walking red flag – run!
The outlook is rosy
Bryony Dixon, supervisor of the Hitchcock 9 project, has said long and loud that this is by far the one most deserving of release, and I completely agree. The good news I can reveal here is that tentative plans are actually being made to release the restoration, with cinema and TV screenings to be followed by Blu-ray, DVD and online editions. And it’s only the beginning. Thus far, only a few of the Hitchcock 9 have been released on a physical format, while a couple more have limited availability online.
The non-appearance of the rest has been disappointing to say the least, but unfortunately many factors have conspired against them. It’s complicated. However, all concerned parties – restorers, archives, rights holders, theatrical distributors, home video licensees and more – care deeply about getting the remainder out there and are working hard to make it finally happen.
24.9.2018 update: The Pleasure Garden is coming but its release will require some additional financial investment to make it happen – more here. In the meantime, if you can offer any help or funding advice, please contact Daniel Cohen, composer of its commissioned score, or me directly.
Green with envy, red with rage. Miles Mander and Virginia Valli, no longer having any pleasure in the garden.
However, you can also play your part right now. Lately I’ve been publishing a series of articles highlighting the fact that none of Hitch’s films are public domain and they’re all copyrighted worldwide. Spread the word and help counter decades of erroneous thinking. Added to that, the huge number of bootlegs, especially of his British films, have almost – but not quite – killed the financial viability of future releases. Again, urge others to boycott the pirates; this ongoing series of guides makes it easy to tell the difference. The likes of YouTube are also full of copyright-infringing content and it’s a long, drawn-out process getting it removed; the very definition of a Sisyphean task.
Most rights holders have simply given up trying. But the Internet Archive, a fantastic resource housing, among other things, a vast quantity of PD and free-to-use material, is also unwittingly home to many unauthorised uploads. The misinformed are prone to cite the presence of anything hosted there as proof of its PD status. Definitely not so. I’ve been working with the Archive to get all of Hitch’s features taken down. Efforts are still ongoing, as there were hundreds of them and many other copyrighted films have been scooped up in the net. We just removed almost 5,000 in a single day!
If the bootlegs and pirated uploads didn’t exist or were much fewer in number, we’d have had all the Hitchcock 9 a long time ago, to say nothing of countless other unreleased silents. That isn’t my opinion, it’s fact and all the aforementioned parties are privately emphatic about it. As for The Pleasure Garden itself, I’ve said all I can for now but check back for regular updates!
BFI videos (some now dead)
- AH from the Archive
- The Seeds of Genius (7min)
- Hitchcock at the Picture Palace (7min)
- Restoring The Pleasure Garden (8min)
- Scoring The Pleasure Garden (11min)
- Video notes
They’re dancing for joy in The Pleasure Garden. And hopefully soon, so will we.
Pleasure in the public domain
1.1.2021 update: Various folk are already claiming that The Pleasure Garden has just “entered the public domain” as of the end of 2020. But there’s more to it than that. Its actual, US-only, copyright expiry date is the end of 2021, based on it not being released/published in the UK, Germany and the US until 1926 (plus 95 years), rather than the 1925 filming/completion date that most are erroneously calculating from. For the rest of the world, the expiry date is the end of 2050: Hitch’s death plus 70 years.
Even then, bear in mind in both cases it only applies to the non-restored, untinted BFI print detailed above – and nothing else. Not any of the specially recorded and separately authored, copyrighted scores; not Rohauer’s copyrighted, recut, retinted version or its modern score; and definitely not the BFI’s restored, tinted restoration and its new score. In all cases, they meet the threshold of originality and easily qualify as derivative works with full-term copyrights.
Obviously, the same rules apply to Hitch’s other silents as they in turn begin to enter the public domain. Next to expire are The Mountain Eagle (also US end of 2021, rest of the world 2050), should it ever be found, and The Lodger (US end of 2022, rest of the world 2050), as they were first released/published in the aforementioned countries in 1926 and 1927 respectively.
Daily Mirror, p. 9, 12.4.1926
A word or two on The Pleasure Garden’s initial releases: the first German exhibition is often cited as being in Munich, 3 November 1925 but extensive searching hasn’t turned up anything in the city’s newspapers around that date. All citations lead back to an unsourced mention on IMDb but even if true it likely refers to a preview screening, irrelevant for copyright purposes. There are various mentions in British and German trade papers regarding different stages of the production and filming in Italy and Germany from March–August 1925.
It looks as if previous researchers accessing these primary sources have mistaken them as referring to actual public screenings, hence the confusion. Much more reliable are two January 1926 trade paper mentions: an advert in Der Kinematograph and a Film-Kurier review (9.1.1926), translated in Charles Barr’s English Hitchcock (1999, p. 216). There is also a brief review in the morning edition of the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung (16.1.1926, p. 3, top right) and a lengthy review in the morning edition of the Deutsche allgemeine Zeitung (16.1.1926, p. 3, bottom left). It’s a pretty safe bet it went on general release soon afterwards, as indicated in the Wiesbadener Bade-Blatt (top centre p. 1, 13.8.1926 and p. 10, 15.8.1926).
Across the Channel, the film had a month of trade shows commencing 23 March 1926 at the Tivoli in the Strand, London, as per The Bioscope advert of 18.3.1926 and review below; reviews in the Daily Mail, 24.3.26; and Kine Weekly, 25.3.1926. These were followed by a single week of public screenings at the Capitol in London’s Haymarket from 12 April 1926; The Observer, 14.4.26. After the enforced hiatus precipitated by C.M. Woolf, it was finally shown nationally from January–November 1927, immediately preceding the public roll-out of The Lodger. Various US screenings took place from at least September 1926, as evidenced by the Hammond Lake County Times and Lowell Sun; and to April 1928, as in the Alton Evening Telegraph. Reviews: Variety (Nov 3 1926, p. 20; text) and Photoplay (Jan 1927, p. 126-127).
The Bioscope review
Daily Mirror advert, 12.4.1926
Grateful thanks to Aitam Bar-Sagi and Nick Cooper for help with locating German and British newspapers.
Part 1: Production
Related articles
This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.
