Sounds and Silence Cinema – Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail at The Jacaranda Club, Liverpool
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
Murder. Sex. Intrigue. 1929’s Blackmail has all of the ingredients you might expect in an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. Based on a play by Charles Bennett, the film tells the story of Alice White (Anny Ondra), a woman who is blackmailed after killing a man who attempts to sexually assault her. The film is set in London, and actually started production as a silent film, before technological advancements and the success of talking pictures in America intervened. The film’s producer, John Maxwell, gave Hitchcock the go ahead to shift to sound production, making Blackmail notable as one of the very first — and best received — British talkies.
You can catch this vintage classic at The Jacaranda Club as part of Sounds and Silence Cinema.
