The Pleasure Garden (100th Anniversary) + Live Score

Join us in celebrating the centenary of Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature film, which will be introduced by Matthew Jarron, Curator of the University of Dundee Museum Collections. This special screening will feature a live piano accompaniment from Steven Gellatly. 

The film follows the fortunes of two chorus girls with very different attitudes to life, shifting from backstage comedy in a seedy London theatre to full-blooded steamy melodrama in colonial Africa. 

Thanks to a co-production deal between Gainsborough Studios and the Munich-based Emelka, the picture was made in Germany with location filming in Italy. Shooting was beset with difficulties, and the young Hitchcock was forced to borrow money from the cast and crew to get it finished. Yet many of his enduring themes are already present here, including theatrical artifice, dual personalities, voyeurism and obsession.  

Hitchcock created such a distinctive body of work over six decades, so it’s fascinating to see where it all started for him. Many of his recurring themes have their roots right here, and the film proved a real baptism of fire for him – almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong during the production, and many a young director might have given up and decided never to make another film – thankfully for us, Hitchcock was made of stronger stuff!”

– Matthew Jarron, film historian and museum curator