Alfred Hitchcock’s last silent film, The Manxman, is about fisherman Pete Quilliam (Carl Brisson and lawyer Philip Christian (Malcolm Keen), friends from birth, but both after the same woman: Kate (Anny Ondra). Pete asks Phillip to ask her father, Caesar Cregeen (Randle Ayrton), for permission to marry. He says no, as Pete is poor. He goes to Africa to make his fortune, leaving his friend behind to watch over Kate.
As you can figure out, Phillip and Kate fall in love. Pete is said to have died in Africa, so they plan on being together, just in time for him to come home and marry her. But ah, one day at the Old Mill, they made love, so the baby she gave birth to doesn’t belong to her husband. It’s the child of the top judge in town, Phillip.
This movie was to be filmed on the Isle of Man, but Hitchcock eventually relocated production to Cornwall due to frequent creative interference from author Hall Caine. However, Caine was invited to Elstree Studios to observe. As for Carl Brisson, he got to play two cheated husbands for Hitchcock, in this movie and in The Ring.
You can watch this on YouTube.
