Blackmail (1929)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Film Review

Blackmail, Alfred Hitchcock's second great crime thriller (after The Lodger), has the distinction of being the first all-sound film to be released in Great Britain.  The film was originally shot as a silent film but during its initial post-production the studio (British International Pictures) requested Hitchcock to convert it into a partial sound film.  Aware that the switch to sound was imminent, Hitchcock had pre-empted this and had been careful to shoot most of the film in such a way that it would work just as well as a silent film or a sound film.  Additional scenes were shot with recorded dialogue, but dialogue was also added to the original silent scenes, making this a complete sound film. 

The main problem that Hitchcock encountered in adding sound to the film was that his lead actress, Anny Ondra, had a strong Polish accent.  Rather than re-shoot all of her scenes, he chose to dub her lines.  Another actress, Joan Barry, spoke her lines, just off camera, with Ondra miming as best she could.   Since only a small proportion of cinemas at the time had the necessary equipment for sound films, Blackmail was released in two versions, with and without sound.

Whilst it may lack some of the visual impact of Hitchcock's previous silent films - notably The Lodger - Blackmail does have greater realism (due in part to the use of real locations), which serves to heighten the suspense.  The expressionistic style of the earlier films is used more sparingly - and where it manifests itself, as in the murder scene, it does so very subtly and effectively.  Of perhaps greater interest than the visuals is Hitchcock's ingenious use of sound - most memorably in the sequence where the heroine, guilt-stricken by what she has done, only hears the word "knife", repeated incessantly (the aural equivalent of a stabbing) by a gossiping old woman.   Hitchcock was one of the few filmmakers at the time to experiment with sound and explore how it could be used to bring subjectivity to a film, much as he had done with the camera and lighting in his previous films.

Blackmail is an obvious forerunner of the classy suspense thrillers that would earn Hitchcock his international reputation over the following three decades.  Most of the familiar Hitchcock motifs are present in this film - a gruesome murder, an attractive blonde in peril, an innocent man wrongly accused of a murder (although interestingly here it turns out to be the villain, not the hero), anxiety caused by guilt linked to a killing, and a famous landmark featuring in the climactic denouement - in this case the British Museum.  The director makes his second cameo appearance in this film (his first was in The Lodger) - playing an unhappy passenger on a London underground train being harassed by a small boy.  The immense success of Blackmail convinced Hitchcock that it offered a winning formula which he would be tempted to repeat over and over again.

Film Synopsis

Alice is unimpressed when her boyfriend Frank, a Scotland Yard detective, fails to keep their appointment one evening.  After a slight quarrel, they decide not to go to the pictures together.  Instead, Alice goes off with another man who has taken her fancy, a young painter named Mr Crewe.  She allows her new beau to take her back to his apartment so that he can show her his latest artistic achievements.  Alice, a naive slip of a girl, is not prepared for the torrent of passion that ensues.  When Mr Crew pounces on her and tries to force her into bed, she grabs hold of a bread knife and stabs him to death.  Traumatised, Alice leaves the apartment and returns home, not knowing that she has been seen leaving.  The next day, Frank is called to the scene of the murder and is surprised to find a glove belonging to Alice.  When he confronts her at the grocers shop belonging to her father, a shifty looking man appears.  From his jacket, he pulls out a glove that matches the one which Frank found in the dead man's apartment...