"Blackmail" (1929)

The first ten minutes of Alfred Hitchcock's  Blackmail begin as a silent, as Scotland Yard catches a criminal. One of these, detective Frank Webber, meets his girlfriend Alice later that night. Their awkward dinner conveys Webber's lack of interest in Alice, so her late night date with another man remains no surprise. However, Alice walks away from this secret date a murderer, and the plot twists from there.

I am a fan of early talkies, and this one is one of the best I have seen. When the film transitioned from silent to talkie, I literally exclaimed, "whoa!" It would have made sense either way. Furthermore, I am fascinated with what a consistent and quality filmmaker Hitchcock always was. His early work maintains the same standards classics like "Psycho," "The Birds," "Rear Window," etc. have that make him legendary today.

And, as always when I review a Hitchcock film, this review ends prematurely because of what I do not want to reveal. It remains worth seeking out.

~F.