THE PLEASURE GARDEN | Live: Jane Gardner & Hazel Morrison

Alfred Hitchcock's first feature film is a action-filled melodrama - with live music by British duo Jane Gardner and Hazel Morrison.

Patsy, a chorus girl at the Pleasure Garden music hall helps down on her luck dancer Jill get a job in her show. But when Jill’s fiance Hugh turns up, he and Patsy are drawn to each other. Meanwhile Jill is living the highlife and being courted by a rich prince. Jealousy! Madness! Murder!

Alfred Hitchcock’s debut as a film director was this long-thought-to-be-lost and now restored brilliant hothouse silent melodrama. There is an early chance to spot all the later iconic Hitchcock motifs used here for the very first time. The very first shot shows chorus girls descending a spiral staircase just like the staircase shot in Vertigo, while a man uses opera glasses to better appreciate a dancer just as Jimmy Stewart uses them in Rear Window. Even the classic icy Hitchcock Blonde first appears here, in this fascinating and wildly entertaining film. 

The Music

Jane Gardner is a pianist and composer based in Edinburgh. She has received commissions from leading ensembles and organisations such as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Piano Circus (6 pianos), The Gogmagogs (acrobatic string quartet) and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (brass quintet). Her score preparation work includes orchestrating and editing the music of other composers, and she worked on Disney’s Brave soundtrack. For many years she has specialised in accompanying silent films, performing at major venues such as HippFest and the British Film Institute and contributing original music to the recent Cinema’s First Nasty Women DVD release. Jane enjoys playing both solo piano and with other musicians, and her scores are sometimes semi-composed and other times completely improvised.

Hazel Morrison studied Timpani and Percussion at the RSAMD (Royal Scottish Conservatoire) in the early 1990s. A versatile musician she has played with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestra Scotland/Brazil, folk rock band Cantara, The Bathers (Justin Currie and James Grant), and with PJ Moore (The Blue Nile) at Celtic Connections, winning a Danny Kyle award. She released a solo album winning a Danny Kyle award on her own, and is currently creating a new solo album. She teaches and coaches young percussionists for Edinburgh City Council. Hazel regularly plays silent film accompaniments with pianist Jane Gardner at film venues around the UK.

This screening and performance is done in collaboration with the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival in Scotland.

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