Blackmail, and Rich and Strange

Although it sounds like Tom has caught my cold in the interim!

My boss is leaving Apple next week, and today we had a going-away lunch for him, at a Mexican restaurant up in Sunnyvale. It was pretty good, although they strangely put a big pile of chopped lettuce on top of their enchiladas; weird. (Have I mentioned that no Mexican restaurants out here have chimichangas, that is, deep-fried burritos? I acquired a taste for them at a particularly good restaurant in Madison, but they must be an entirely American invention, since none of the more authentic restaurants in California seem to have them. Pity.)

Anyway, my boss has been at Apple for about a decade (which includes some of Apple's darkest years) and has decided at last to move on, and to spend more time with his family as well. He's been really helpful to me during my first year at Apple, as he's very upbeat and outgoing, and you may recall that he helped me pick out my car, encouraging me to buy the next higher model than I'd been considering (which I did, and have been quite happy with). It's been fun working with him, and I'll miss him.

Once he goes, I'll be reporting directly to the head of QA for our department, who I think I've mentioned before is new. So far she's been fine to work with, although her e-mail style tends towards the brusque. I was talking to a former cow-orker of hers and said that her e-mail is generally of the style, "We need to look into this. Could you do so, and take appropriate action?" He said that that's exactly what her e-mail is like and you just have to take it into account, since she's considerably friendlier in person.

Anyway, she's been delegating a lot of little projects to people this week, probably stuff that was left over from her predecessor who left in January. Today I had to decipher an e-mail she forwarded to me which turned out to have a completely different meaning from what it at first appeared to be saying. Fortunately, I remembered that my outgoing boss had been involved in testing that stuff, so I got the scoop from him. Which only served to remind me that there's no substitute for institutional knowledge!

Tonight, Subrata, Mark and I went to the Stanford Theatre to see two more Hitchcock films.

Blackmail (1929) is a very early Hitchcock film, and much of it is told in the style of silent movies (without cue cards); dramatic music played over an otherwise soundless sequence of action. The story involves a detective Frank Webber (John Longden) whose girlfriend Alice White (Anny Ondra) is seeing an artist (Cyril Richard) on the sly. When he assaults her, it leads to a series of events resulting in Frank and Alice being blackmailed by a ne'er-do-well named Tracy (Donald Calthrop), culminating in (among other things) a chase through London's British Museum.

Rich and Strange (1932) also has some hallmarks of silent films, although to a lesser degree. It involves a young couple, Fred and Emily Hill (Henry Kendall and Joan Barry) who are caught in the drudgery of day-to-day work, when Fred's uncle bequeaths them a large sum of money to let them go travelling. So they do. But Fred ends up being terribly prone to seasickness, and in the meantime Emily falls in love with a man named Commander Gordon (Percy Marmount), while Fred later falls in love with a Princess (Betty Amann). This trial to their marriage serves as the bulk of the film.

Neither of these movies is particularly good. Blackmail is worthwhile solely for Calthrop's turn as the blackmailer, Tracy, whose laid-back manner is quite entertaining. But the silent film quality of the movie makes many scenes unintentionally comical (mainly through overacting or speeded-up film), and the plot overall is quite simplistic. There are a few elements of Hitchcock style in it (shots of objects intended to convey an abstract concept, such as a spinning wheel to indicate a car chase), but that's about it.

Rich and Strange is somewhat better, but not much. It's played for comedy, especially early in the film. The acting is better, but often over-the-top, especially Kendall's turn as Fred Hill. The movie turns into a somewhat ridiculous adventure near the end (which includes a cat which comes to a bad end, eliciting hisses from the audience). The film is heavy on the "strange", but is not terribly rich.

Thankfully, we've just about emerged from the 20s and 30s period of Hitchcock's career, and will soon be into the good stuff.