2 out of 5

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

I recognize I have a tendency towards contrariness. But I can sense it rearing it, I think / I hope, and take mental steps to tamp it down for reviews. I wasn’t expecting any of that needed for my Hitchcock viewings: I’ve enjoyed the few Hitch movies I’ve seen prior to purposefully exploring his whole catalogue, and loved Alfred Hitchcock Presents as a kid, a “know” all the visual / tonal nods to his work that have pilfered so much media I’ve been able to enjoy. I was looking forward to seeing the director’s earliest efforts, both as an education in his growth as a creator, and also as further experience with silent films and early talkies, of which I have some but not much experience otherwise.

What I can’t say I was expecting: the over-stylized efforts of a young upstart. Who knew that tryhard hipsters were making films in the 20s? Still, even through that (overly cynical) lens, its been fascinating seeing a journeyman jump quickly to mimicry of stuff he found fascinating – particularly German expressionism – and then glomming on to technological advances to start experimenting. Yes, the movies are a struggle of style over content, with the former always winning, but in a short period of time, we see Hitch become more mature, even if the struggle then becomes working in genre pics (romances, comedies) and trying to maintain his interest in the projects. That resulted in the last of his silent movies, The Manxman, being what I’d consider his best of that era.

Blackmail thus excited me – his first talkie! Kinda! (More on that in a moment!) Given that his direction of actors, to my eye, lagged behind his visual control of a scene, audible dialogue should – I’d hoped – be a big boon, giving the actors more levers to pull for expressing themselves, and lessening the burden on Hitch in that regard. Additionally, we have the returning duo of Jack Cox as DP and Emile de Ruelle as editor, both from Manxman, where they were integral to that film’s polish. And we’re getting into a thriller – the genre where the director would make his name. So you see my rating up there, and think – since you’re obsessed with me, and always so critical of my methods – that I’m just being contrary towards this “59th best British film ever,” according to Timeout. But no, I swear, I’m rooting for Hitchcock.

And then, like an addict, ol’ Alfie gets suckered in by his old vice – technological advances – and makes an incredibly stylized flick that’s otherwise poorly edited, clunkily acted, and a slog despite its compelling and (I’d think for the time) brazen narrative.

Kinda.

I’m not telling you anything the wikipedia page doesn’t, but Blackmail didn’t start as a talkie. There is, in fact, a wholly silent version, and you can tell that plenty of scenes from that were used in the “talkie,” either with solely music tracks (like the opening and concluding section) or dubbed in dialogue, making this more of a partial talkie. Regardless of how you slice the decision of who wanted sound, and how much of the movie was actually shot for it, that split in the sound version is very evident, and the silent version is generally considered – with some scenes playing out differently, and even a different actor – a separate film. And in the same way that the first several years of Hitch’s directing showed him figuring out how to blend his heavy visual hand with actual storytelling, it feels like we’re witnessing that starting anew, for him and for motion pictures in general: the “language” of sound was not established, and I’d wonder if certain technical limitations required certain decisions as well, such as not cutting for long, pointless scenes of characters standing around and, like, reading their mail. Thrilling!

It’s not for nothing that the most engaging parts of the movie – the ones that work the best – are those that were shot silently, with the aforementioned opening and closing both standing out as some of Hitch’s most astounding visual accomplishments to date, with the former including new versions of zooms / reflections that are just so much fun to see done well and with purpose. But man, the sound sequences. It was new, so sometimes we just revel in takes of nonsense chatter, trying to massage it like another camera trick in a way but not quite getting there. And that’s still kinda interesting, but then stuff that feels like it should work – just straight dialogue – comes across like panic-induced stasis, with actors stuck between silent pantomime and trying to play it cool; folks posed with noir shading and stage-like positioning and exchanging inanities that don’t even track well on paper. The plot has so much potential for tension that’s just frittered away as a result, so distracted is the film by either the possibility of sound or, I think more likely, shooting the sound scenes open-ended enough so they could be stitched to the silent scenes, which I think is really what results in it feeling so wooden overall.

Anny Ondra, as the female lead – despite having her voice dubbed in – is much more effective here than in Manxman; the movie (and Hitch) does give her room to go through some pretty big emotional cycles, even if that kind of stalls out once all the plot pieces are in place. The other actors fall into that above-mentioned middleground of half-posing, half-uncertainty, although Cyril Ritchard plays a good creep early on.

In Blackmail, Alice (Ondra) has a night out with a fella (Ritchard) that goes poorly; she defends herself during a rape, but that’ll look mightily like murder to the police. Her boyfriend (John Longden), a detective, is down to help her cover for her crimes, but guilt – and maybe a scheming eyewitness (Donald Calthrop) – have her wanting to come clean. The film wants to play off of that trio, but their introduction is the point at which most of the story / character development stops, at which point Hitch stalls until his next opportunity for visual bravado – a final (admittedly visually great) chase sequence.

My excitement for Hitch’s first talkie is put on hold for his next movie, which I believe is a true talkie. On the plus side, I’m encouraged now to revisit Blackmail in its silent version, and see how it compares.