1929 film by Victor Saville
Kitty is a 1929 sound part-talkie British drama film directed by Victor Saville and starring Estelle Brody and John Stuart. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The film was adapted from the 1927 novel of the same name by Warwick Deeping and marked the third co-star billing of Brody and Stuart, who had previously proved a very popular screen pairing in Mademoiselle from Armentieres (1926) and Hindle Wakes (1927).
Kitty was initially planned and filmed as a silent, but after its original release Saville decided to reshoot the latter part with sound. As no suitable facilities were yet available in Britain, Saville, Brody and Stuart travelled to New York to shoot the new sequences at RKO Studios.[1] The film was released in the form of a part-talkie and features a prologue with dialogue while the feature itself features a synchronized musical score with a singing sequence in which Estelle Brody sings the theme song of the film.[2]
Plot
In pre-World War I London, handsome young aviator Alex St. George (Stuart) meets and falls in love with shopgirl Kitty Greenwood (Brody). He asks her to marry him, to the horror of his snobbish, class-bound mother (Dorothy Cumming), who is appalled by the notion of her son marrying into a family who run a tobacconists shop. Before the wedding can take place, war breaks out and Alex is called up to serve as a pilot.
Seeing her opportunity to sabotage the relationship, Mrs. St. George sets about trying to poison Alex's mind against Kitty by feeding him via letter a string of malicious and false tales about Kitty's behaviour, alleging that in his absence she is frequently to be seen around town flirting and behaving in an improper manner with other young men. Alex becomes so unnerved and distraught about his mother's stories that his concentration is affected and he crashes his plane, suffering not only critical injuries which leave him in danger of paralysis, but also amnesia.
Alex is repatriated to England for treatment and faces a long and painful physical rehabilitation and the struggle to regain his memory, while at the same time a battle of wills is being waged by his mother and Kitty, both trying to convince him that the other is lying. Eventually Kitty succeeds in rekindling his love for her, and Mrs. St. George is crushed.
Historical significance
Kitty, released in May 1929, is sometimes cited as the first British sound film as it was released in cinemas before Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail, the other candidate for the honour. But that date only actually applies to its first silent version; the film was soon withdrawn from exhibition and retooled as a part-talkie, following the release of Blackmail.[2] Furthermore, opponents of its claim point out that the sound portion of Kitty was filmed in the US, whereas Blackmail was filmed entirely in the UK. Drawing the distinction between "first British film with sound" and "first sound film made in Britain", this view holds that the latter is the true definition of the term and the distinction therefore goes to Blackmail.
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