DOWNHILL. US title: When Boys Leave Home. Gainsborough, 1927; Alfred Hitchcock, director; Claude McDonnell, cinematographer; Ivor Novello, Ben Webster, Robin Irvine, Sybil Rhoda, Isabel Jeans, Ian Hunter. Shown at Cinecon 41, September 2005.

   Ivor Novello stars in a film adaptation of his own play, and is once again directed by Hitchcock, whose previous film was The Lodger in which Novello played the prime suspect.

   Although Novello is best known as a consummate stage performer and composer of popular songs, the screen persona I’ve seen in at least three films shows a darker, risk-taking side.

   In Downhill, he’s a popular public school student, from a wealthy family, who takes the blame for a friend’s indiscretion with a barmaid and slides downhill after his father throws him out.

   The film shows the influence of German expressionism on Hitchcock, with some striking photography in an extended dance-hall sequence that, although it takes place in Paris, recalls images of decadent Berlin settings in the 1920s.