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Watching the obscure Hitchcock film "Rich and Strange" (1931) this evening. An odd film for Hitch - a comedy about marriage and fidelity. It's also unusual for having long sequences of silent material and non-dialogue titles with short stretches of talk, resembling other "transition" films between the silent and sound era.

I'm curious if there was a silent version of the film prepared for its original release and, if so, was alternative material filmed for it? I couldn't find any info on another version, but noticed that the censor card is notated "Rich and Strange (Synchronized)". Earlier, when simultaneous versions of "Blackmail" were released, the opening censor cards read "Blackmail (Synchronized)" and just "Blackmail" on the silent version.

"Rich and Strange" is a favorite of mine, having watched it many times. I don't think there would have been a silent version, but perhaps I can explain the often silent, sound film.

Firstly, much of it was filmed as a travelogue, with scenes onboard ship, at the port of calls and even in the cities, including Paris and the Moulin Rouge nightclub. It might not be true, but it seemed as if Hitchcock took his entire production crew on a Cruise ship, where scenes were filmed on shore at 'ports of call' and aboard ship. Primitive sound recording would have been impossible to do, other than what is heard in the film.
The second half of the picture has them returning on a steamer that eventually sinks (shortly after they climb onto a Chinese Junk). Can you imagine the difficulty of recording sound in 1930 throughout all of those scenes, or would the mostly noise have added to the picture? This second part was likely filmed at the studio or nearby.

The film is mostly visual, with occasional dialogue scenes which were very important to the story. One very clever point in the story was where the picture goes black and silent momentarily, heightening the suspense. When all seemed lost, everything turned out okay.

BTW. I read once where Hitchcock had made an epilogue for the story. Apparently someone met them when they returned to England and suggested they should have their story made into a movie. "No one would ever believe it!" was their answer in the epilogue.