Blackmail
Tags: suspenseful, murder

Plot synopsis:
A tire is spinning. A police van speeds along city streets. Inside, a Morse Code radio message containing an address is received. The van stops at a seedy building, and two plain clothes police go up some stairs. Quietly, they crack open the door of a room where a man lies atop a bed, reading a paper. A gun is on his bedside table. The man realizes he is about to be arrested and makes a move towards his gun, but the detectives move faster, and arrest him.The man is in a lineup in a patio with dozens of others. A young woman slowly passes by the men, and identifies the man, suggesting a rape charge will follow. The detectives work is finished, they ride home on a train. A fat man {Hitchcock} one seat away is being annoyed by a little boy who pulls down his hat,Scotland Yard Detective Frank Webber (John Longden) goes out for the evening with his capricious girlfriend Alice White (Anny Ondra), first going to a crowded tea house. As they jockey for a table, she misplaces one glove and Frank must go back to retrieve it.They bicker in a series of minor quarrels. Frank seems more interested in police work than in her. They talk about going to a movie, a new crime film. Frank scoffs, claiming its too unrealistic, but Alice comments: I heard they got a real criminal to direct it.Alice capriciously changes her mind back and forth driving Frank off. She has a note from another man arranging to meet in that teahouse, and she spots him and they make signs. Frank decides he has had enough, pays and leaves, but stays near the door.Alice leaves with Mr. Crewe (Cyril Ritchard), an artist. Frank sees them leaving the restaurant and follows them for a while.Alice is invited by Crewe to visit his studio, she demurs coyly but finally agrees. We learn that Alice lives with her father and mother in their tobacco shop, a short distance away.A suspicious looking man is lurking around, observing them.Crewe finds a note at the entrance. He goes behind the stairs ask the concierge Mrs. Humphries (Hannah Jones) at what time the note was left. Alice is already several steps up the stairs, so Mrs. Humphries does not see her.The camera follows Crewe and Alice as they climb multiple flights to the top floor. The artist's intentions are obvious, but Alice is unaware and innocently flirts with the artist by saying she might like to be his model, cooing with delight over his attentions.At his studio, a finished painting of a jester laughing at the viewer draws Alice's attention.Alice asks how the pallette is held, then paints a head on an empty canvas, which she playfully signs. Crewe then sketches a nude female body to go with the head. Crewe says he will paint her if she puts on a dancer's costume that is hanging on a screen.Crewe sings and plays "Miss Up-to-Date" on the piano while we watch Alice undress behind the screen.They have some fun and the guy tries to push too fast forward as he forces a kiss on Alice. She says she wants to go home. After she takes off the costume, he takes hold of her street clothes and flings them out of reach, and assaults her, dragging her to his bed.In silhouette we see the couple struggling wildly behind a curtain that hides the bed. A bobby patrolling outside below the apartment window while Alice screams hears nothing.To defend herself, Alice grabs a nearby knife and stabs him to death. She walks back from the bed in a daze, the knife gleaming in her hand.The jester painting appears to be looking at her, and she uses the knife to stab at the canvas.The camera swoops about to convey Alice's disorientation.Alice removes evidence of her presence in the flat. She obliterates her signature on the canvas and looks around carefully as she picks up her belongings.However, she forgets one glove behind. She sneaks noiselessly down stairs, opens the door and leaves. The mysterious man is still lurking around, watching.Alice walks aimlessly along empty streets which seem filled with reminders of the murder. In her eyes, a neon advertisement showing a cocktail shaker becomes a hand plunging a dagger. Whenever she sees an extended right hand, she thinks of Crewe's hand extending from the deathbed.Alice wanders back into her home at dawn and sneaks inside. She lies down clothed, pulls up the covers of her bed, and pretends to be asleep when her mother (Lisa Evans) brings her a cup of tea. After her mother leaves the room, Alice takes off her clothing and changes into a fresh outfit for the day.The concierge discovers the body very early that morning, calls police, and soon after, the murder is the talk of the neighborhood.During the family breakfast that morning, Alice listens to a customer neighbor carrying on about the killing. "Oh, it wouldn't be so bad if the victim were bopped over the head with a brick -- that's a British way. But a knife! How could anyone use a knife?"Alice is asked to slice the bread, and her hand trembles as she grasps the knife. The neighbor babbles on. We hear only the word "knife" stabbing at Alice's conscience, the rest of visitor's nonstop comments become softer and softer, but the word KNIFE stays loud. A last one is practically a scream, and the bread knife leaps out of Alice's hand.Alice's father (Charles Paton) yells "Ere! You might've cut someone with that!"Meantime, Frank has been assigned to the case and finds one of the gloves at the murder scene. He recognizes the glove as Alice's, so Frank uses his position to subvert the investigation by hiding it in his pocket. Assuming that Alice is the killer, he goes to visit Alice at her father's shop.Frank takes Alice aside to talk in a phone booth, making it clear it that he loves Alice and will protect her. He is clearly devastated as he confirms she indeed is the killer.At this point, petty thief Tracy (Donald Calthrop), the lurking suspicious figure who saw Alice entering and leaving the artist's flat, interrupts the two and attempts to blackmail the couple, showing he has the other glove with him. First he just asks Frank to pay for an expensive cigar.To gain time, Frank and Alice tell the family he is a very special business friend of Frank's. The blackmailer, befuddling Alice's parents, demands breakfast, and relishes it, while Frank watches in disgust.Frank predicts Tracy's blackmail will fail. His conflicted willingness to cover up for Alice receives an unexpected boost when Tracy is fingered as a suspect in Crewe's death. The concierge identifies him as being at the scene of the crime. Tracy has a police record so suspicion falls on him.Frank receives the new information and sneers when he goes back to face Tracy with it, and announces he has called the police to make an arrest. Cornered, slimy, but dirt-poor, Tracy offers to give back the money, and says he wasn't serious about the blackmail. "One's got to live, you know!"The same police van of the early scenes rushes along the streets.To avoid arrest, Tracy jumps out, shattering a back window. The camera, as if startled by the commotion, dollies backward and we see the posse of lawmen rushing after Tracy.After being taken into custody, while being transported in a van, Tracy simply jumps out of the van at a traffic stop, and the pursuit continues on foot. He attempts to shake off the pursuers by losing them inside the vast British museum.While the museum chase is going on, Alice sits in her bedroom, meditating and reflecting on her situation.The camera cuts back and forth between Alice's meditation and the chase. Tracy is first chased in large rooms with display cases, corridors, then Tracy flees down a hanging rope while an enormous Egyptian stone face stares impassively.After being surrounded, he clambers to the top of the main dome and dies after falling through the skylight.Alice's reflections end and she resolves to go to Scotland Yard and confess.She asks to talk to the chief inspector (Harvey Braban) about the murder. When she is ushered in, Frank is already there. She is interrupted before she has her say, first by Frank, who says her statement would be meaningless since the case is solved, and then by an unrelated phone call to the chief inspector. Frank escorts her out.She tells Frank that she killed Crewe, because she was about to be raped and was defending herself.Frank clenches his fists and stares towards the camera as if to claim his deception has been vindicated.As a piece of evidence, the painting of the torn jester, is brought into the station, the sight of it troubles Alice's conscience.All seems well between Alice and the relieved Frank, as he and Alice walk away together, hand in hand, yet one senses Alice's unease behind her eyes in the final images.

Review: His female lead was a talented German silent picture actress, whose accent was too heavy for sound, so an off-camera reader had to be used, plus a decent amount of expensive film had already been used and had to be integrated into the 'talkie' as well.All considered, the movie is probably the best example of the transition from these two cinematic paradigms that can be found.The silent portion of the film establishes John Longden's character as a hard-nosed young Scotland Yard detective.
The artist coaxes Alice (Ondra) up to his flat, and things take a sinister turn in short order.Over the second half of the film, the plots unfolds, and the emotions and consciences of the protagonists are sorely tried.What immediately blew my mind was what a great silent director Hitchcock was.
The movie has a unique feel, as Hitchcock was still using many silent film techniques at the same time that he was experimenting with sound.
Not all of this works perfectly, but it does not detract from the film's many positive features.Alice White (Anny Ondra, voice dubbed by Joan Barry) goes out for the evening with her boyfriend, who is a police detective (John Longden).
In the final scenes, when the detective must help Alice make a final report on everything that has happened, he sees his job in a far different perspective."Blackmail" is of the darker type of Hitchcock, like "Notorious" or "Vertigo".
Yet like many seemingly creaky elements of "Blackmail", this is something that actually works to the film's benefit and gives it a stylistic uniqueness that helps it stand out today.Alice (Anny Ondra) steps out on her police detective boyfriend Frank (John Longden) to have fun with an artist she fancies named Crewe (Cyril Ritchard).
The capricious nature of law enforcement is always on view, whether it's a bobby sauntering outside an apartment window while Alice screams for help inside or Frank using his authority to subvert a murder investigation.This is the rare Hitchcock film that features fine acting bottom-to-top, but Calthrop stands out best as Tracy, the personification of the core ambiguity of this film.
We end the film pulling for him with as much passion as we pulled away from him at first encounter.Subtle directorial touches abound, like Alice holds her face in an expression we see mirrored in a cut-to scene of Tracy fleeing through the British Museum while an impassive giant mask looks on.
While his earlier silent picture The Lodger is most often cited as the first example of what came to be known as "Hitchcockian", Blackmail really looks like the first time he consolidated his style and knew exactly what he wanted to achieve.Blackmail is not literally "all-talking"  the first six or seven minutes are made up of an introductory silent sequence in which a criminal is hunted down, and this is in fact very well done, utilising all the techniques of tension and visual attention-grabbing that Hitch had perfected in his half-dozen or so preceding silent pictures.
In fact, it would become a semi-regular feature throughout the rest of Hitch's career to begin with a little dialogue-free sequence to set the scene  for example the lengthy camera pans at the start of Rear Window (1954) which introduce all the other apartments and provide Jimmy Stewart's character's back-story.Blackmail is noted for its creative use of sound, although perhaps it was circumstance more than anything else which encouraged Hitchcock to be experimental.
As well as being one of the most telling example of Hitchcock's disrespectful attitude towards his female victims, it hammers home perhaps the most fundamental idea in his approach to film-making  that there are three players involved here  the killer, the victim and the audience.The story builds up to a tense and satisfying finale which established yet another Hitchcock first  a chase scene featuring a famous landmark, in this case the British museum  an idea suggested by the future director Michael Powell.
Her boyfriend finds her glove in the apartment and realizes she did it; the other glove was found by a criminal hanging around the artist's apartment building, and he decides to blackmail the inspector.Hitchcock more than appears in this film; he has a bit with a little boy on a subway.
Also, the beginning scene had a really great shot from a mirror that showed a criminal's point of view.I watched the version of this film with sound recorded, and it was pretty ingenious how sound was synchronized.
Editing problems and the early silent montage of film confused me to the point I thought I was watching a silent movie."Hitchcock" touches are evident, most notably the bread knife and murder sequence, and the chase through the museum.
Blackmail(1929) at first started out as a silent picture until the producers decided that the film might be better if it was converted to sound with additional scenes.
Hitchcock began filming the movie of "Blackmail" as another silent one.
But then, as good as he is, Hitchcock was never an actor's director.What the film-maker has done is to take a fairly simple story and invest its subtext with all sorts of interesting ambiguities, a hallmark of his success both as an entertainer and as an artist.The movie is dated in many obvious respects, but if you focus on why the audience responds as it does and what that means about a cut-and-dried moral order that we're often presented with, then I think you've experienced the heart of Hitchcock's rare gift..
Alfred Hitchcock had directed nine silent films before Blackmail- all, I should add, before the age of 30- and while he was hesitant to make the transition to the "fad" known as synchronized sound, he took to it with enthusiasm and with the daring he'd been known already for by this time as one of Britain's most notable directors.
One sequence that still sticks in my mind, and one that reminded me a little of Murnau, was when Alice is walking outside on the streets following the killing in the apartment, and she walks along with a look on her face that is staggering and sometimes with the bodies and faces merging together.It's the kind of sequence, among others here, that display Hitchcock at the peak of his skills as a director in the silent-film mold, but what's ingenious about Blackmail is how he manages to make some scenes work great for one form and then for another, and occasionally merge the two.
This scene, which expresses the momentary joy of the sound of singing and music as well as the physical and facial expressions from Orda trying on the dress and hearing music, is without putting it too pretentiously that rare moment where silent and sound film merge in a kind of transitional poetry.If it does sound a little like typical Hitchcock, don't fret; it's actually near *classic* Hitchcock, with the murder case being a little more delicate this time around and the instance of blackmail being a devilish twist as the provoker, played by an actor with a great despicable face and a eerie temperament and voice.
Working from the play by Charles Bennett, the Master of Suspense is able to weave this possibly stagey affair into a string of tense close-ups and reactions, of dialog that seems to toy with the emotions of Alice and Frank (befuddling Alice's confused parents), and Hitchcock, apparently not happy with the play's third act, cuts to a wild chase scene as the climax that leads its low-life if innocent man through the British museum and all the way up to the roof for one of the first major chase scenes in a Hitchcock film.While this climax nearly gets marred by the inter-cutting with Alice's close-up, and earlier on in the picture there's a jarring moment when the silent-movie feel for the first few minutes (i.e. the cops going into the man's room looking at the paper, the gun, etc) into sound, these are its only major liabilities.
After all, there was Music and Sound Effects that so often added Depth and Delight to the Art Form.Here is the First British Sound Movie and along for the ride is Hitchcock transforming a Silent Movie that probably took a lot of effort considering the Technical limitations and must have been a learn as you go procedure.It does feel a bit Manufactured at first but quickly settles in and has a number of striking and entertaining flourishes that the Director creates and His Love and Playful Style is in clear evidence.
Hitchcock, when he finished his new film, "Blackmail", reshot some key scenes with sound, dubbed some, and so here we have Britain's first talkie.
Alfred Hitchcock, knows how to make movies, instead of focusing on the love triangle between the woman her boyfriend,, and the guy she likes,, he focuses more on the task at hand and that would be the crime that takes place.
And finally there is Donald Calthrop plays Tracy and really seems like a creepy guy and a criminal which means that he did a great job in his role.When it comes to sound this is Alfred Hitchcock's entry into sound cinema Blackmail ends up being a little bit of a hybrid.
Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail from 1929 is the very first talking picture made in Great Britain.It did start as a silent picture but changed into a talkie after the beginning.It tells the story of Alice White (Anny Ondra) who's the girlfriend of Scotland Yard detective Frank Webber (John Longden).They have an argue at the restaurant and Alice goes out with an artist, Mr Crewe (Cyril Ritchard).He tries to rape Alice but she kills him with a knife before he gets to do that.Frank works on the case and realizes Alice is the killer after he finds her glove.But there's somebody with the other glove.That's a criminal called Tracy, played by Donald Calthrop.Now he decides to blackmail those two.Hitchcock had the gift of fine film-making early on.This goes very close to his masterpieces.The casting is perfect.Anny Ondra fits perfectly in the role of Alice White.Her voice was actually dubbed simultaneously on the set by Joan Barry for Anny had a thick German accent.John Longden is terrific as her detective boyfriend.Cyril Ritchard and Donald Calthrop make fine villains.The director himself is seen on the subway being bothered by a little boy.There's a lot of tension in this movie.One fine scene is where Alice hears the word knife repeated several times by some woman at her home.That shows the guilt Alice struggles with.And then the chase scene at the British Museum is a classic.This movie shows that Hitch was the true master of suspense..
Blackmail was Alfred Hitchcock's fist sound movie (but at least the first 10 minutes were silent).
Even worse, her boyfriend is put on the case and there is the mystery of the missing glove to solve too...Through watching this, you get a good idea what London was like in 1929, when it was made.Blackmail is worth checking out, certainly a must if you are a Hitchcock fan.Rating: 3 stars out of 5..
Perhaps that is where this film truly belongs, locked away in a dusty drawer, labeled "For movie historians only".This is an example of Hitchcock's early work and by to-day's standards is full of mistakes and imperfections:First of all the acting: Anny Ondra who plays Alice White the daughter is the only convincing actor.
It isn't without flaws, John Longden's performance is rather stilted with a mixture of over-acting and under-acting, and while the dubbing is not bad at all there were times where with instances of restricted sound technique that the film may have benefited a little better by being silent instead.
Her BF the cop treats her like a child, the blackmailer seems to make it awful easy for them to turn the tables on him, and as for the sleazy artist...Cyril Ritchard looks right out of a silent from even earlier w/ the pancake makeup and etc....This isn't a bad movie by any means, and you certainly can see where later Hitch classics ala 'the Wrong Man', 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' had their roots.**1/2 outta ****.
"Blackmail" is more interesting than "The Lodger", but was just as ineffective at keeping my attention.I probably didn't concentrate on it for more than a few minutes at a time.I will describe the plot now, so that this review is long enough:A young lady has a man attempt to force himself on her and she kills him with a butter knife (which doesn't seem like a particularly lethal weapon).She gets away with the crime and is blackmailed by someone who knows what she did.The main actress was much better looking than the one in "The Lodger".
However, the film is in sound and Anny Ondra, (Alice White) plays the role of a rather silly blonde who is a girlfriend of a man called Mr. Detective Frank Webber, (John Longden) who works for Scotland Yard.
A rare outing for the silent archive print of this Hitchcock movie shows it to be extremely slight, despite excellent performances from Anny Ondra (Alice) and Cyril Ritchard (the Artist) in particular.
Unconvincing sound effects and an unmoving camera seemingly bolted to the floor don't help as we watch a prim Scotland Yard detective (John Longden) on a date with his hard to please girlfriend, Alice (Anna Ondra) But, when Alice has to defend herself against a letch who picks her up, the film becomes classic Hitchcock.
Hitchcock ends the film with a silent (except for music) chase through the British Museum.
A disorientating high-angle shot of the heroine descending a spiral stairway is uncannily similar to the belltower shots in 'Vertigo (1958).'The film's plot concerns Alice (Anny Ondra), who is cheating on her detective boyfriend Frank (John Longden) with a sleazy artist (Cyril Ritchard).
From the perfect structure of Kubrick's The Killing to the masterful visual storytelling of Spielberg's Duel, from the audacious camera work of Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage to the gorgeous composition of Scott's The Duellists, one gets to spy the first hints of genius.Blackmail was Hitchcock's first talking picture, the story of a young woman who kills a man in self-defense and is later approached by a shady witness who wants money in exchange for his silence, while the protagonist's boyfriend, a Scotland Yard detective, gets involved in the case.The director's visual talent shines through, with touches like a match-cut between a fingerprint and the face of a suspect, a vertiginous view of a flight of stairs, the quietly sinister way the killing is shot.
Basically in 1920's London shopkeeper's daughter Alice White (Anny Ondra) has a boyfriend, police Detective Frank Webber (John Longden) who seems more interested in his work than her, but she accepts an invitation to an artist's house.
You can tell in many moments that this film started out as silent, including the dubbing of actress Ondra, and the moments without sound effects or dialogue, but it actually works to some effect for the better.
Of course, things get well let?s say more than just a little complicated when seedy blackmailer gets involved, claiming that he had seen Alice enter the artists quarters.One of the major issues in the works of Alfred Hitchcock is the disparity between appearance and reality.
Blackmail has the double distinction of being both Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film for British cinema.
'Blackmail' was initially filmed as a silent thriller, and was innovative changed into a talkie halfway through the production.The story revolves around a young woman named Alice (Anny Ondra), who is dating Detective Frank Webber (John Longden), and for some reason or another she decides to ditch to meet with another man.
That said, 'Blackmail' is not one of Hitchcock's best films, and is probably more significant because of its early use of sound.
It's a good movie, but not a great one- and extra credit because Hitchcock manage to turn this film from a silent one into the first British "talkie".***½ out of *****!.
Knowing that he was probably the first British director of a talkie, Alfred Hitchcock safely made a silent concurrent version of "Blackmail." No matter, as it is the talkie version that predominates today.Beautiful Alice White (Anny Ondra), whose father owns a smoke shop, is the girlfriend of New Scotland Yard detective Frank Webber (John Longden).
The film concerns a young woman Alice who began to flirt with an artist and while visiting his studio, she stabbed him to death in self-defense after she had refused his demands of posing in the nude and he would not take "no" for an answer.Watching the movie I also noticed that Hitchcock and Luis Bunuel had the same fetishes - looks like the old saying proved to be right, great minds think (and desire) alike..
Blackmail was England's first talking picture and Alfred Hitchcock's second suspense film.
Their fans think they can do no wrong, even if the film isn't that good.BLACKMAIL was Hitchcock's last silent movie, and first sound film.
Of, like Altman says, "removing" in order to create a "desirable image".Even before "Blackmail" was completed, Hitchcock knew the era of silent films had ended.
The first British feature film to be shot with sound (although a silent version also exists), Blackmail is a landmark moment in the career of Alfred Hitchcock.
It's an important Hitchcock film and one any avid viewer of the director should take time to see.The plot premise is rather simple: Alice White (Anny Ondra, who was famously dubbed by English player Joan Barry because her English wasn't up to scratch), a pert young blonde, has a fight with her detective boyfriend in a restaurant and is picked up by an artist.
You will see, however, one of Hitchcock's best "cameo" appearances, as the story begins While quarreling on a date with detective boyfriend John Longden (as Frank Webber), fickle Anny Ondra (as Alice White) flirts with charismatic artist Donald Calthrop (as Tracy).
'No. Not tonight.'" ******* Blackmail (6/30/29) Alfred Hitchcock ~ Anny Ondra, John Longden, Donald Calthrop, Cyril Ritchard