Blackmail 1929

     Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in London during the 1920’s.  Her boyfriend is Frank Webber and he is a Scotland Yard detective.  Frank seems more interested in police work than in Alice, at least that is what she thinks?  Frank takes Alice out one night but she has secretly arranged to meet another man?  Later that night, Alice agrees to go back to this man's flat to see his studio?  He has other ideas and he tries to rape Alice!!  She defends herself and kills the man with a bread knife!!  When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case.  Of course he would be handling this case!!  He quickly determines that Alice is the killer based on the evidence.  Someone else has also learned that Alice is the killer and there is a threat of blackmail!!

     A lot of this movie was originally shot silently.  When sound became available during the course of shooting, director Sir Alfred Hitchcock re-shot certain scenes with sound and this was his first talkie film.  There was one complication with this change.  Leading lady Anny Ondra had a very thick Czech accent and this was not appropriate for her character Alice White?  Joan Barry was chosen to provide a different voice for Alice.  During post-production, dubbing technology did not exist.  The solution was for Barry to stand just out of the shot and read Alice's lines into a microphone.  Ondra mouthed the dialogue in front of the camera.  This is generally acknowledged as the first instance of the voice of one actress voice being dubbed by another.  Even the word "dub" is technologically inappropriate in this case.  This movie is really a BLAST from the past and I really liked it.  5*

85 min, Crime directed and written by Alfred Hitchcock and also written by Charles Bennett, Benn W. Levy and Michael Powell with Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, Charles Paton, John Longden, Donald Calthrop, Cyril Ritchard, Hannah Jones, Harvey Braban, Ex-Det. Segt. Bishop.
 
Imdb:  7* out of 10* with 9748 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 87% with 23 critic reviews, 65% audience scores with 2500+ ratings, French Films 4* James Travers, Letterboxd 3.4* out of 5* with 5 fans, Slant Magazine 3 1/2* out of 5* Chuck Bowen, Amazon 4.4* out of 5* with 71 ratings.

Special Note:  In one key shot, The Artist Cyril Ritchard is photographed with a thick shadow (caused by the arm of an overhead chandelier) across his upper lip.  Sir Alfred Hitchcock wanted the image to evoke the old-fashioned and heavily mustached villain found in many silent movies.  He later called this touch "my farewell to silent pictures."  When this movie was released, the silent version did considerably better business than the sound one.  This was because few theaters other than those in big cities were equipped for sound.  With film The Jazz Singer (1927) doing spectacular business, the producers decided that the last reel of this predominantly silent movie should have sound.  Sir Alfred Hitchcock thought that this was an absurd idea and he secretly filmed the entire film with sound!!  This is the first British movie and also the first movie directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock to have sound.