Instrumentation
0.0.2 cl in Bb (I+II=cl in A + bcl).asax(=tsax).1 – 1.0.0.btrbn.0 – perc(2): drum kit/cowbell/vib/xyl (2 bows & 1 motor) – pno – vln.vla.vlc.db
Availability
Score and parts for hire (hire@fabermusic.com). Restored DCP film print available from the BFI: bookings.films@bfi.org.uk
Programme Notes
The Pleasure Garden
Original score: Daniel Patrick Cohen
Starring: Virginia Valli, Carmelita Geraghty, Miles Mander
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Production Company: Gainsborough Films (1925)
Duration: 90 minutes
Film Print: DCP B & W print available from the British Film Institute (bookings.films@bfi.org.uk)
Premiere with Cohen’s score: 2012, London, UK
12 Players: 0.0.2 cl in Bb (I+II=cl in A + bcl).asax(=tsax).1 – 1.0.0.btrbn.0 – perc(1) – pno – vln.vla.vlc.db
Alfred Hitchcock’s directorial debut, made when he was 25, follows the love lives of two dancers at a London nightspot.
The diverging lives of two dancers are told in melodramatic style in Alfred Hitchcock’s debut feature. One becomes a major star, while the other stumbles into a marriage with a dangerous womaniser, who cheats on his wife when abroad in an unnamed colony.
Although set in London, the film was shot in Germany and on Lake Como. The opening sequence anticipates the some of the elements that characterised his later work, as the camera lingers on the legs of a group of chorus girls, a spectator leers and the viewer is implicated in the voyeurism. Hitchcock insisted his handwritten signature be featured in the credits, claiming, “Actors come and actors go, but the name of the director should stay clearly in the mind of the audiences”.
The British Film Institute supplies the restored print of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Pleasure Garden (1925).
bookings.films@bfi.org.uk
Tel: +44 20 7957 8938/8935