Blackmail (1929)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Charles Bennett (play)
Alfred Hitchcock (adaptation)

Release Date:

6 October 1929 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

See and Hear It - Our Mother Tongue As It Should Be Spoken

Plot:

Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920's London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland...

Plot Keywords:

Knife | Blackmail | Detective | Murder | Glove

Cast

Anny Ondra	...	Alice White
Sara Allgood	...	Mrs. White
Charles Paton	...	Mr. White
John Longden	...	Det. Frank Webber
Donald Calthrop	...	Tracy
Cyril Ritchard	...	Mr. Crewe (the artist)
Hannah Jones	...	Mrs. Humphries (the landlady)
Harvey Braban	...	The Chief Inspector (sound version)
Ex-Det. Sergt. Bishop	...	The Detective Sergeant

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Finland:K-12 (1995) | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Germany:12 | Spain:T | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) (1989) | Iceland:L

Filming Locations:

Bloomsbury, London, England, UK

Company:

British International Pictures (BIP)

Trivia:

Much of the film was originally shot silent; when sound became available during the course of shooting, director Alfred Hitchcock re-shot certain scenes with sound, thus making it the Master of Suspense's first talkie.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the artist is talking to the landlady, his walking stick is tucked under his arm. When he turns around, it is hanging on his forearm.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Det. Frank Webber: Well, we finished earlier tonight than I expected.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Telescope: A Talk with Hitchcock" (1964)

Soundtrack:

Sonny Boy

Hitchcock's guilty woman

A common motif in Alfred Hitchcock's movies is the guilty woman: "Blackmail", "Psycho" and "The Birds" are all prime examples. In "Blackmail", Alice White (Anny Ondra) goes home with an artist one night and he tries to rape her. She murders him, and from then on everything reminds her of it. The jester painting appears to be looking at her (or she at it?), a billboard looks like a knife, and a woman keeps uttering the word knife. But in the end, everything blows up in Alice's face.

Hitch was certainly showing his chops here. The camera angles, scenery, and other such things all combined to make what we would expect in a Hitchcock movie. I try to imagine being a moviegoer in 1929 watching "Blackmail" for the first time, wondering what Hitchcock's subsequent work would be like.