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This comic cautionary tale, just one reel of which is known to survive,
is sometimes reckoned the directorial debut of the young Alfred Hitchcock, then
aged just 23. The claim is tenuous, since Hitchcock's exact contribution is
uncertain, and the film may never have come before a paying audience.
Hitchcock had joined the Famous Players-Lasky studio at Poole Street in
Islington in 1921, after moonlighting for the firm as a title designer. He rose
fast, greatly benefiting from his exposure to the scenario department's seasoned
American staff, and in February 1922 The Times referred to the studio's "special
art title department under the supervision of Mr. A. J. Hitchcock". But the
Americans began to pull out soon afterwards, and Poole Street was leased to
independent producers, leaving Hitchcock as part of a skeleton crew.
Hitchcock's activities over the following year, including his abandoned
directorial debut Number Thirteen, are comparatively obscure. Seymour Hicks,
producer, star and credited writer of Always Tell Your Wife, hired out the
studio in February 1923, intending to make ten two-reelers based on his past
stage successes, with longstanding ally Hugh Croise behind the camera. Hicks and
his wife Ellaline Terriss had first performed Always Tell Your Wife, a marital
farce written by E. Temple Thurston, in the programme at the Coliseum in 1913,
and first filmed it the year after.
Hitchcock was probably engaged as assistant director, though Hicks described
him, no doubt facetiously, as a "fat youth who was in charge of the property
room". At some point during filming, Croise either fell ill or fell out with
Hicks, who turned to the portly propmaster to replace the older man. It is
unknown which of the surviving scenes Hitchcock filmed. The nine remaining films
in the projected series were never made, and there is no evidence that Always
Tell Your Wife was released.
But it was while working with Hicks that Hitchcock was spotted by tyro
producer Michael Balcon, who made the young man an integral part of his new
company, beginning with Woman to Woman (d. Graham Cutts, 1923), filmed at
Islington a few months later.
Henry K. Miller
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1. The photograph (2:02)
