Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail Was the Only Great Sound Film of 1929
Note: This is the hundred-and-fifty-second in a series of historical/critical essays examining the best in film from each year. Essentially, I am watching films from the beginning of cinematic history that interest me and/or hold some critical or cultural impact. My personal, living list of favorites is being created at Mubi, showcasing five films per year. All this being explained, what follows is an examination of my second favorite 1929 film, BLACKMAIL, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
As will be made clear with my three following film essays, I didn’t really think much of the first year of the sound era. That distinction mostly applies to America, at least, and indeed four out of my five 1929 favorites are foreign, that American one is silent, and only one is a sound film. That sound film is Alfred Hitchcock’s BLACKMAIL, notably also filmed in a silent version distinguished enough from its more famous counterpart with markedly different approaches to framing and performances. Nevertheless, my appreciation of Britain’s first feature-length sound film does lie with its sound, manipulated to great effect by Hitchcock, unlike most anyone else in the world at the time.
Only Hitchcock’s second foray into the thriller genre, following THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG (1927), BLACKMAIL also introduced the first true “Hitchcock blonde” in the form of Anny Ondra, a Czech actress who had nevertheless appeared in Hitchcock’s remarkable final silent THE MANXMAN earlier in the year. Hitchcock’s ingenuity with the sound of the film is often tied to Ondra’s performance, a stunning, expressive performer who nevertheless carried a thick accent deemed too strong for sound (a fate that met a number of successful foreign actors in America as well). Hitchcock had already shot the silent version with Ondra, and replacing her was not really an option. So he had Ondra mouth her lines on screen while actress Joan Barry delivered the character’s dialogue off-screen, dubbing and multi-track audio not yet being a possibility for film. It could have resulted in immersion-breaking jank, and sure, BLACKMAIL was not immune from some of the stiffness its fellow sound pioneers shared, but it’s a clever invention that didn’t disrupt the film’s resonance.
Ondra’s performance is nevertheless frantic and haunting, perhaps because of the care Hitchcock put into the film’s integration of sound in the first place. As film historian Tim Lucas illuminates in his audio commentary for Kino Lorber’s release of BLACKMAIL, the iconic director had an inkling that he would be asked to bring sound into the silence of the film, so he shot much of it without a reliance on direct views of every character’s face. It’s such a small, and again, potentially off-putting effect, but reshoots did not put undue strain on Hitchcock’s vision (based on Charles Bennett’s play of the same name) and BLACKMAIL remains a highly mobile early sound film as a result.
It also remains a bold expression of sexuality and violence. The plot is this: grocer’s daughter Alice White (Ondra) is a flighty flirt, and although she’s “steady” with her detective boyfriend Frank Webber (John Longden), she nevertheless goes on a date with artist Mr. Crewe (Cyril Ritchard). Ritchard delivers a great performance as that archetype we can still recognize today, the apparent nice guy that nevertheless turns to brutality when he tries to get what he wants. And that’s Alice’s “virtue,” something she’s not willing to give up.
The sequence inside his expansive, upstairs residence/studio is full of symbols and visual acuity, from the image Alice and Crewe draw together (a figure of a woman Crewe noticeably adds slight breasts too) to his already existing painting of a leering jester to the tutu he compels Alice to wear. Their fight behind the curtains of a four-post bed is punctuated by the appearance of Alice’s hand scrambling for a weapon, which finds a knife. The struggle on the bed seems to end, and Crewe’s hand flops out into our view, followed by Alice’s nearly catatonic visage, vulnerable in her undergarments with the murder weapon in her hand. It’s a series of striking moments, for 1929 and 2020. From there, Hitchcock displays his developing pedigree for building tension as Frank discovers Alice’s crime and the two conspire to prevent the discovery of Alice as the murderer, even in the face of blackmailing vagrant Tracy (Donald Calthrop).
BLACKMAIL’s final sequence in a remarkably convincing recreation of the British Museum (brought to life by the Schüfftan process developed for Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS [1927]) has also received just praise for its labyrinthine artifice, but once again, my appreciation for Hitchcock’s subversion in this moment comes back to sound. Oh, in a way, it could considered too traditional. Because in fact, even though it’s called Britain’s first feature-length sound film, BLACKMAIL features extended sequences of silent footage. The beginning and end are the most obvious, even backed with a soundtrack, but Hitchcock dropped minimal sound effects and dialogue here and there to keep audiences playing along with the marketing distinction of the film. BLACKMAIL’s best, strongest visual moments don’t rely heavily on sound, and they’re in fact made even more powerful by their presence between talkie sequences. Therefore, it may be a bit of a cheat to call BLACKMAIL the best sound film of 1929, because my love for it stems for its adaptation of silent conventions to sate the hunger of an industry in need of sound.
