16. Mary (1931)

Today if a production company is releasing a film into a foreign language market, all that needs to be done is to translate the dialogue into subtitles. Dubbing is another option even though it seems to be less popular that it was about 40 years ago where Godzilla movies, German krimi films and Italian spaghetti westerns got that treatment. In the early days of talking pictures, dubbing was not an option since recording for film was in its infancy and with silent pictures being passe, studio bigwigs didn't think people would want to read subtitles.

Film studios had a solution, but an expensive one. Reshoot the film with a foreign language cast. There are several existing examples with dual versions available for comparison. Universal's Dracula (1931) is probably the best known example, with the original Bela Lugosi version shot during the day and a Spanish language version shot at night. Eight Laurel & Hardy shorts and one feature were made in Spanish (as well as some in German, French, Italian and Esperanto) with the comedy duo reading their lines off a blackboard. Paramount on Parade (1930) was translated into at least 4 foreign languages (Paramount did a few French versions of Maurice Chevalier films his native country). Foreign language films also received translation to English such as The Blue Angel (1930) and M (1931).

Starting with The Pleasure Garden and The Mountain Eagle, Hitchcock already had a German market and in 1930 while Hitchcock was filming Murder!, simultaneously, he worked on the German version on the same set, but a different cast (Miles Mander and Esme Chaplin were the only two to be in both versions).

The plot is no different than the original, but the German version is about 25 minutes shorter than its British counterpart with a chunks of dialogue (especially during the jury deliberation scene) and an effective montage of Sir John and Markham (renamed Brown in the German version, as were a number of the characters) discussing their next move while we see Diana/Mary pacing her jail cell while the gallows are constructed.

I had no success of finding reviews of this film from 1931 (which I don't think would be easy to translate). Hitchcock did have difficulty with the shooting since his German was only passable and he claimed he wasn't too familiar with the language's idioms to be too effective. Also, the production studio, Süd-Film, wanted several changes to the script which Hitchcock didn't want since he didn't want to deviate too much from the original.

Personally, I found the German version to be a slight improvement over the British film, only because the acting is a lot better here. Where Herbert Marshall was stuffy and droll in Murder!, Alfred Abel is a lot more relaxed and comfortable in his performance (in fairness to Marshall, Murder! was his sound debut). Olga Tschechowa is no great legend of cinema history, but she was a lot better here than Norah Baring as the condemned woman.

Apparently, Mary was a lost film for several years and the edition presented on Kino Lorber's Blu-Ray and DVD (which can be purchased here) is taken from the only known print. That being said, it does seem to have some warbled dialogue around 40 minutes into the film where the Browns get a call from Sir John and the ending does seem to be missing its last scene. However, its good to be able to compare and contrast both versions at your pleasure.