The Hitchcock Files is a continual feature at The Kuleshov Effect. In these posts, I take a detailed and chronological look at the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock. It should be noted that this series does not include his early silent films, though these are probably noteworthy in their own right.
“A good, clean, honest whack over the head with a brick is one thing. There’s something British about that. But knives… nope, knives is not right. I must say that’s what I think and that’s what I feel. Whatever the provocation I could never use a knife. Now mind you a knife is a difficult thing to handle… knife… knife… knife…” –Blackmail
If there’s one thing that can be said about Alfred Hitchcock, it’s that he was an innovator. He first worked in the motion picture industry as a title card designer, and was so good at it he was directing silent features within five years. Over the next five decades he would radically influence the art of filmmaking and be known as the ultimate “master of suspense.” Through his habit of having a cameo in each of his films, appearing in marketing materials, and hosting his own television show (Alfred Hitchcock Presents), he would become one of the few film directors everyday citizens could easily recognize. Though he never won an Academy Award for Directing, if there was a Top 10 list for Best Directors of All Time, he’d be on it.
Even though I love the few Hitchcock films I’ve seen, and am fully aware of his larger-than-life reputation, I wasn’t expecting much when I sat down to watch his first sound film – one of the first European talkies – Blackmail. Released in the summer of 1929, it had only been a year-and-a-half since Warner Bros. had premiered The Jazz Singer in the United States, which signaled the sound revolution. That film, while accompanied by recorded score and a few sound effects, only had a few scenes in which sound was recorded live on set, and most of them were musical numbers. I expected much of the same from Blackmail.