After starting production as a silent film, British International Pictures decided to adapt Blackmail into a separate sound film. It became the first successful European talkie; a silent version was released for cinemas not equipped for sound (at 6,740 feet), with the sound version (7,136 feet) released at the same time.[5] Both versions are held in the British Film Institute collection.[1][6]
Blackmail is frequently cited as the first British sound feature film.[7][8][9] It was voted the best British film of 1929 in a UK poll the year it was released. In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine ranked Blackmail as the 59th best British film ever.[7]
Plot
On 26 April 1929, Scotland Yard Detective Frank Webber (John Longden) escorts his girlfriend Alice White (Anny Ondra) to a tea house. They have an argument and Frank storms out. While reconsidering his action, he sees Alice leave with Mr. Crewe (Cyril Ritchard), an artist she had earlier agreed to meet.
Crewe persuades a reluctant Alice into coming up to see his studio. She admires a painting of a laughing clown, and uses his palette and brushes to paint a cartoonish drawing of a face; he adds a few strokes of a naked feminine figure, and guiding her hand, they sign the picture with her name. He gives her a dancer's outfit and Crewe sings and plays "Miss Up-to-Date" on the piano.
Crewe steals a kiss, to Alice's disgust, but as she is changing and preparing to leave, he takes her dress from the changing area. He attempts to rape her; her cries for help are not heard on the street below. In desperation, Alice grabs a nearby bread knife and kills him. She angrily tears a hole in the painting of the clown, then leaves after attempting to remove any evidence of her presence in the flat, but accidentally leaves her gloves behind. She walks the streets of London all night in a daze.
When the body is found, Frank is assigned to the case and finds one of Alice's gloves. He also recognizes the dead man, but conceals this from his superior. Taking the glove, he goes to see Alice at her father's tobacco shop, but she is too distraught to speak.
As they speak privately in the shop's telephone booth, Tracy (Donald Calthrop), arrives. He had seen Alice go up to Crewe's flat, and he has the other glove. When he sees Frank with the other one, he attempts to blackmail them. His first demands are petty ones, and they accede. Frank learns by phone that Tracy is wanted for questioning: he was seen near the scene and has a criminal record. Frank sends for policemen and tells Tracy he will pay for the murder.
Alice is apprehensive, but still does not speak up. The tension mounts. When the police arrive, Tracy's nerve finally breaks and he flees. The chase leads to the British Museum, where he clambers onto the domed roof of the Reading Room and slips, crashing through a skylight and falling to his death inside. The police assume he was the murderer.
Unaware of this, Alice feels compelled to give herself up and goes to see the Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard. Before she can confess to him, the inspector receives a telephone call and asks Frank to deal with Alice. She finally tells Frank the truth—that it was self-defense against an attack she cannot bear to speak of—and they leave together. As they do, a policeman walks past, carrying the damaged painting of the laughing clown and the cartoon canvas where Alice painted over her name.
The film began production as a silent film. To cash in on the new popularity of talkies, the film's producer, John Maxwell of British International Pictures, gave Hitchcock the go-ahead to film a portion of the movie in sound. Most sources state that Hitchcock thought the idea absurd and surreptitiously filmed almost the entire feature in sound, but in reality the silent version - which was largely completed - was cleverly used for several sequences with non-synchronous sound and dialogue where the actors faces were not visible. The opening 61⁄2 minutes of the sound version are silent, with musical accompaniment, as are numerous shorter scenes later, and the entire final chase sequence is from the silent version with occasional non-synchronized vocal interjections, including Donald Calthrop's last words on the dome of the British Museum's reading room. Thus it can be argued that the sound version of Blackmail, despite BIP's publicity, is a "part-talkie". Gaumont-British's High Treason, directed by Maurice Elvey was also turned into a sound film mid-way during production. Much like Blackmail, much of the silent footage in High Treason was maintained and dubbed over for the sound version, with Elvey himself voicing some of the minor characters.[10]
Lead actress Anny Ondra was raised in Prague and had a pronounced Czech accent that was felt unsuitable for the film. Sound was in its infancy at the time and it was not possible to post-dub her voice. Rather than replace her and reshoot her scenes, actress Joan Barry was hired to speak the dialogue off-camera while Ondra lip-synched her lines. This makes Ondra's performance seem slightly awkward.[1]
Hitchcock used several elements that would become Hitchcock "trademarks" including a beautiful blonde in peril and a famous landmark in the finale. Without informing the producers, Hitchcock used the Schüfftan process to film the scenes in the Reading Room of the British Museum since the light levels were too low for normal filming.
The film was a critical and commercial hit. The sound was praised as inventive. A completed silent version of Blackmail was released in 1929 shortly after the talkie version hit theaters. The silent version of Blackmail actually ran longer in theaters and proved more popular, largely because most theaters in Britain were not yet equipped for sound. Despite the popularity of the silent version, history best remembers the landmark talkie version of Blackmail. It is the version now generally available although some critics consider the silent version superior.[1] Alfred Hitchcock filmed the silent version with Sam Livesey as the Chief Inspector and the sound version with Harvey Braban in the same role.
Hitchcock's cameo
Alfred Hitchcock's cameo, a signature occurrence in many of Hitchcock's films, shows him being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground. This is probably the lengthiest of Hitchcock's cameo appearances and he appears around 10 minutes after the start. As the director became better known to audiences, especially when he appeared as the host of his own television series, he dramatically shortened his on-screen appearances.
Release and reception
First screened to press and cinema distributors on 21 June 1929 at the Regal at Marble Arch, the film premiered at the Capitol Cinema in London on 28 July 1929. Blackmail was one of the most successful releases of that year, and received critical praise.[2]
In a public poll, Blackmail was voted the best British film of 1929, largely on the basis of the silent version, which, as mentioned above, was more widely seen. In the same national UK poll, the best films of their respective years were The Constant Nymph (1928), Rookery Nook (1930), The Middle Watch (1931), and Sunshine Susie (1932).[12]
Legacy
As an early sound film, Blackmail frequently is cited by film historians as a landmark film,[13] and is often cited as the first truly British "all-talkie" feature film.[1][8][9] Two future directors worked on this production: Ronald Neame operated the clapperboard and Michael Powell took on-set publicity photographs.[6]
Earlier British part-sound films include:
The Gentleman, a short film in the Phonofilmsound-on-film process, was an excerpt of The 9 to 11 Revue, directed by William J. Elliott, and released in the UK in June 1925.
A restoration of Blackmail's silent version was completed in 2012, as part of the BFI's £2 million "Save the Hitchcock 9" project to restore all of the director's surviving silent films.[17]
Like Hitchcock's other British films [17][18]Blackmail has been heavily bootlegged on home video.[19] Additionally, various licensed, restored releases of both silent and sound versions have appeared on DVD and video on demand from Optimum in the UK, Lionsgate in the US, and others.[1]
Young and Innocent, released in the US as The Girl Was Young, is a 1937 British crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney. Based on the 1936 novel A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, the film is about a young man on the run from a murder charge who enlists the help of a woman who must put herself at risk for his cause. An elaborately staged crane shot Hitchcock devised, which appears towards the end of the film, identifies the real murderer.
The Skin Game is a 1931 British drama film by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the 1920 play by John Galsworthy and produced by British International Pictures. The story revolves around two rival families, the Hillcrists and the Hornblowers, and the disastrous results of the feud between them.
The Manxman is a 1929 British silent romance film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anny Ondra, Carl Brisson and Malcolm Keen. The film is based on a popular 1894 romantic novel The Manxman by Hall Caine, which had previously been made into a film 13 years earlier. It was the last fully silent production that Hitchcock directed before he made the transition to sound film with his next film Blackmail (1929).
Piccadilly is a 1929 British silent and sound drama film directed by E.A. Dupont, written by Arnold Bennett and starring Gilda Gray, Anna May Wong, and Jameson Thomas. The film was shot on location in London, produced by British International Pictures.
Cyril Joseph Trimnell-Ritchard, known professionally as Cyril Ritchard, was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin musical production of Peter Pan. In 1945, he played Gabriele Eisenstein in Gay Rosalinda at the Palace theatre in London, a version of Strauss's Die Fledermaus by Erich Wolfgang Korngold in which he appeared with Peter Graves. The show was conducted by Richard Tauber and ran for almost a year.
Anny Ondra was a Czech film actress. She began her career in 1920 and appeared in Czech, German, Austrian, French and English films. In 1933, she married German boxing champion Max Schmeling.
Murder! is a 1930 British thriller film co-written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring and Edward Chapman. Written by Hitchcock, his wife Alma Reville and Walter C. Mycroft, it is based on the 1928 novel Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. It was Hitchcock's third all-talkie film, after Blackmail (1929) and Juno and the Paycock (1930).
The Man Who Knew Too Much is a 1934 British spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Leslie Banks and Peter Lorre, and released by Gaumont British. It was one of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of Hitchcock's British period.
Elstree Calling is a 1930 British comedy musical film directed by Adrian Brunel and Alfred Hitchcock at Elstree Studios.
High Treason is a 1929 film based on a play by Noel Pemberton Billing. It was directed by Maurice Elvey, and stars James Carew, Humberstone Wright, Benita Hume, Henry Vibart, Hayford Hobbs, Irene Rooke, and Jameson Thomas. Raymond Massey makes his first screen appearance in a small role. The film was initially produced as a silent but mid-way during production, Elvey was pushed by the studio to add sound to the film in order to cash in on the talkies. Although a third of the film was filmed in sound, Elvey maintained much of the silent footage and dubbed over the dialogue for shots that were originally silent, with Elvey himself voicing some of the minor characters, which he admitted when interviewed by the Manitoba Free Press shortly after the film was released in the US. Likewise, BIP's Blackmail, directed by Alfred Hitchcock was also turned into a sound picture mid-way during production and many of the silent scenes used dubbed dialogue and sound effects in a similar fashion to High Treason.
John Stuart, was born to Scottish parents, and was a very popular leading man in British silent films in the 1920s. He successfully made the transition to talking pictures in the 1930s and his film career went on to span almost six decades. He appeared in 172 films, 123 stage plays, and 103 television plays and series.
John Longden was a British film actor. He appeared in more than 80 films between 1926 and 1964, including six films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Donald Esme Clayton Calthrop was an English stage and film actor.
Joan Barry was a British actress, whose career straddled the development of talkies.
A Cottage on Dartmoor is a 1929 British part-talkie sound film, directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Norah Baring, Uno Henning and Hans Adalbert Schlettow. The cameraman was Stanley Rodwell. In addition to a sequence with audible dialogue or a talking sequence, the film also featured a synchronized musical score with sound effects and English intertitles. The soundtrack was recorded using the Klangfilm Tobis sound recording process. A cut down edited silent version was made for theatres that had not yet converted to sound but this version is no longer extant.
Kitty is a 1929 sound part-talkie British drama film directed by Victor Saville and starring Estelle Brody and John Stuart. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The film was adapted from the 1927 novel of the same name by Warwick Deeping and marked the third co-star billing of Brody and Stuart, who had previously proved a very popular screen pairing in Mademoiselle from Armentieres (1926) and Hindle Wakes (1927).
God's Clay is a 1928 British silent drama film directed by Graham Cutts and starring Anny Ondra, Trilby Clark, Haddon Mason and Franklyn Bellamy. It is an adaptation of the novel God's Clay by Claude Askew and Alice Askew. It had previously been made into a 1919 film of the same name. The film was made at Elstree Studios by the British subsidiary of the First National Pictures.
The Flying Squad is a 1929 British silent crime film directed by Arthur Maude and starring John Longden, Donald Calthrop and Wyndham Standing. The film was made at Beaconsfield Studios. It was based on the 1928 novel The Flying Squad by Edgar Wallace, which was later remade with sound in 1932 and 1940.
A multiple-language version film, often abbreviated to MLV, is a film, especially from the early talkie era, produced in several different languages for international markets. To offset the marketing restrictions of making sound films in only one language, it became common practice for American and European studios to produce foreign-language versions of their films using the same sets, crew, costumes, etc but often with different actors fluent in each language. The plot was sometimes adjusted with new or removed scenes and script alterations The first foreign-language versions appeared in 1929 and largely replaced the International Sound Version method for many major releases. The most common languages used for these productions were English, Spanish, French and German.
Blackmail is a 1928 thriller play by the British writer Charles Bennett. In Chelsea, an artist's model kills an artist when he attempts to assault her.
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