The Ring

Synopsis

Jack Sander, a fairground boxer known as One Round Jack, is beaten in his own booth by a stranger who turns out to be the Australian champion Bob Corby. Corby takes Jack on as a sparring partner and sets his sights on Jack's fiancée Mabel, seducing her with a serpent bracelet. As Jack climbs the professional ranks to earn a title fight, the triangle tightens until the two men finally meet in the ring at the Albert Hall.

Critique

Hitchcock's only original screenplay, The Ring is the film in which his visual intelligence first runs free. The title works on three levels at once, the boxing ring, the wedding ring and the bracelet that binds the lovers, and the director plays every variation of the image. Distorted lenses, superimpositions and a champagne glass going flat visualise jealousy and drunkenness in purely cinematic terms, lessons absorbed in the German studios. The fairground opening, all rhythm and noise, anticipates his mature style.

Technical sheet

Director

Alfred Hitchcock

Year

1927

Country

United Kingdom

Running time

116 min

Genre

Drama, Romance

Written by

Alfred Hitchcock, Alma Reville

Cinematography

Jack E. Cox

Cast

Carl Brisson, Lillian Hall-Davis, Ian Hunter, Forrester Harvey, Harry Terry, Gordon Harker

Production

British International Pictures

Music

Newly composed original score

Licensing