Blackmail (1929)

	Also Known As: Chantage, Erpressung
	Year of first release: 1929
	Director: Alfred Hitchcock
	Actors: Anny Ondra, John Longden, Donald Calthrop
	Country: GB
	Genre: Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 18.02.2014, DVD
Synopsis: Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920's London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. Frank takes Alice out one night, but she has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night Alice agrees to go back to his flat to see his studio. The man has other ideas and as he tries to rape Alice, she defends herself and kills him with a bread knife. When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case, he quickly determines that Alice is the killer, but so has someone else and blackmail is threatened.
Review: This DVD, edition ArtHaus, is excellent! There are both versions done by Hitchcock, the silent movie and the talking picture. Both are similar but far from identical. The police officer is different, the takes for each scene is different and thus also the impressions. On top of it there is a bonus, a test take including a humorous Alfred Hitchcock!  The movie is built on a simple plot. The directing and cut use the typical Hitchcock's tricks, like special angle of camera playing with what is shown and what is hidden. The curtains are used here and look like a test for the shower curtain in Psycho. There are no many rooms, but the different angles make it interesting and ever changing. The acting of the three main actors is slightly exagerated to be more expressive of their role, the policeman being cheated and protecting his girlfriend, the girlfriend eaten up with remorse. Anny Ondra is very beautiful and the humour of Hitch in the test take is therefore even more surprising!
Rating: 8 /10 Here other posters that give different views into the movie.