This uncharacteristic
Alfred Hitchcock endeavor was adapted by Hitch and his wife,
Alma Reville, from a play by John Galsworthy. The British countryside turns into an ideological battlefield when Hornblower (
Edmund Gwenn), a wealthy, self-man tradesman, stakes his claim to a piece of valuable forest property controlled for literally centuries by the "landed gentry." The local squire (C.V. France) and his wife (
Helen Haye) dig in their heels and refuse to acknowledge Hornblower's presence -- how dare he use mere money to challenge the rights of blood? Their genteel snobbery is every bit as obnoxious as Hornblower's brash effrontery, and the result is a film with virtually no heroes or villains whatever. Never in any future film did Hitchcock ever lobby so strong an attack on the smug implacability of the aristocracy -- perhaps wisely, since The Skin Game proved to be one of his least-successful films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide