‘Blackmail‘, Alfred Hitchcock‘s first ‘talkie’ is a pleasant surprise, a movie that is worth watching and can be seen with the eyes of 2019 viewers, and not just for documentary and historical research purposes.
It’s a crime and blackmail story that involves an amorous triangle, combined with what we call today a ‘#metoo’ story. Such cases are not easy for women today, much less they were in London where the action takes place in 1929. Hitchcock manages to combine elements of sentimental drama with social critique. In addition, we meet here one of the very typical heroines for Hitchcock‘s films, a sexy woman (a blonde, like most of his lead women characters and actresses) who finds herself under social pressure and within a sentimental dilemma, who does not know to make the right decisions, but whom the director makes us sympathize and solidarize with, even if she is suspected to have committed a crime.
Visually, the movie looks good. The introductory scene still belongs to the silent film, dialogues and sound effects start only in the second film, as if the director would have said: ‘That’s where my spoken film career starts.’ There are already in ‘Blackmail‘ elements that we will find in Hitchcock‘s later films: close shots with games of shadows and lights, a murder that happens behind a curtain, a cameo appearance of the director. The expressiveness of the actors at the first spoken films, still using the tools of pantomime specific to the silent movies is well under control. All actors are well-chosen, and even voices and soundtrack are generally better quality than in later Hitchcock movies in the coming years. ‘Blackmail‘ is one of the transition period films that have successfully passed the proof of time. Recommended.