Blackmail (1929) | Presenting Hitchcock Podcast

Gooooood evening. In this month’s episode of Presenting Hitchcock, Cory and Aaron keep their friends close and cheese knives closer as they discuss Blackmail.

Written by: 

Based on the play by Charles Bennett

Adapted by Alfred Hitchcock

Dialogue by Benn Levy

Michael Powell (uncredited)

Starring: Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, Charles Paton, John Longden, Donald Calthrop, Cyril Ritchard, Hannah Jones, and Harvey Braban

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Trailer:

Our Favourite Trivia:

Director Cameo: Being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground.

With The Jazz Singer (1927) doing spectacular business, the producers decided that the last reel of this predominantly silent movie should have sound. Alfred Hitchcock thought that this was an absurd idea, and so he secretly filmed the whole thing with sound.

Much of this movie was originally shot silently. When sound became available during the course of shooting, director Alfred Hitchcock re-shot certain scenes with sound, thus making it his first talkie. There was one complication with this change, however. Leading lady Anny Ondra had a thick Czech accent which was inappropriate to her character, Alice White. Joan Barry was chosen to provide a different voice for her, but post-production dubbing technology did not exist then. The solution was for Barry to stand just out of shot and read Alice’s lines into a microphone as Ondra mouthed them in front of the camera. 

According to a documentary on Hitchcock’s British films on the BBC, the cameramen found it rather difficult to shoot any scenes whilst being confined inside a huge box (this had to be done so that the sounds of the cameras rolling wouldn’t be heard). One cameraman described how it became so warm inside the box and that other people would produce flatulence at the time.

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. 

Uncredited writer Michael Powell claims to have suggested the use of The British Museum as the location for the final pursuit, thus beginning Alfred Hitchcock’s use of famous landmarks in his “chase” movies.

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.

The Random Draw for Next Picture:

Next up, we’ll be discussing Secret Agent (1936)

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