Overshadowed by Hitchcock’s Blackmail and forced into instant obsolescence by the coming of sound, Anthony Asquith’s 1929 silent film is a masterful melodrama that also functions as a swansong for an art form about to be eclipsed (as evidenced by the scene of a cinema pit orchestra watching the ‘talkie’ that will soon put them out of business). In this compelling tale of sexual jealousy and simmer­ing violence, Asquith rivals – some might say matches – Hitch’s masterly melding of Expressionist technique and homely narrative detail, and from its opening shot of a prisoner fleeing across the moors to the hour-long flashback that tells us how we got to this point, A Cottage on Dartmoor remains the work of a young director in love with his medium and at the height of his powers.