The Manxman (1929)

The Manxman was to be Alfred Hitchcock's last silent film, and, in the event, one of the best and most mature works of his early career. Adapted from a novel by Sir Hall Caine, a once celebrated author who specialised in stories set on the Isle of Man, the film was partially, and beautifully, shot on location, albeit in Cornwall. Set in a small fishing community, two boyhood friends take markedly differing paths in adulthood, but still manage to fall in love with the same woman. Tragedy inevitably ensues. Thematic anticipations of the director's later work abound, from Gregory Peck's tormented-in-love barrister in The Paradine Case (1947) to Kim Novak's would-be suicide in Vertigo (1958), although such observations should not detract from appreciating the film's own merits, not least the superlative lead performances.