First talkies and MIA
- Lays claim to be Britain’s first talkie but the truth is seldom so simple
- Worldwide cinema’s silent–sound transition didn’t happen overnight
- Technology progressed with many transatlantic steps along the way
- This does, however, have the director’s first MacGuffin: a lady’s glove
- Several important Blackmail-related items are still sadly unavailable
Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.
Blackmail Collectors Guide, Pt 2: First talkies and MIA, Pt 3: Restorations and scores, Pt 4: Home video
UK poster
Contents
First talkies
Alice holds a spoiler. Paradoxically, it’s a hair-raising Crewe cut. Good girl. She’s impossibly spotless, considering her actual method of dispatch, only revealed in the sound version. Clue: it’s much worse than you think.
History records Blackmail qualifying as a fully-synchronised talking picture, as opposed to many other incipient sound films of the goat gland variety. These include renowned US part-talkies like The Jazz Singer (1927), Lonesome (1928) and Show Boat (1929), not to mention various similar but lesser known British films. The Jazz Singer, for instance, was a marketing con as it’s basically a silent film with a synchronised soundtrack. It still has intertitles throughout and only two minutes of synchronised speech, the first of which (below) doesn’t occur until the 17½-minute mark, just after a short song. Apart from the extended opening, Blackmail is much more of an actual talkie.
Warner’s superb restoration of The Jazz Singer has many single discs but these special edition releases also feature a host of other shorts and extras detailing the earliest years of the sound era.
- US: BD/2-DVD 88-page Digibook (2012) and 3-DVD (2007)
- UK: 2-DVD (2007)
- Germany: 2-DVD (2007)
- France: BD/2-DVD metal tin (2013)
- Awkward Transitions: Hitchcock’s Blackmail and the Dynamics of Early Sound – John Belton
- Hitchcock’s Blackmail and the Threat of Recorded Sound – Matthew McDonald, Music and the Moving Image (2015)
- Music and Sound in Hitchcock’s Early British Sound Films – Claudia Bullerjahn, Reassessing the Hitchcock Touch (2017)
Following on from all the goat gland talkies are scores of cash-in sound reissues of silents, usually with newly-shot talking sequences, like The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and The Godless Girl (1928). Of course, there was no cut-off point for silent films: the chopping and changing of part-silent and sound versions persisted for several years, and the question of what category many of the liminal results fit into becomes pretty moot. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the old gags asking at what point the world’s largest Brussels sprout becomes the world’s smallest cabbage, or is a zebra white with black stripes or black with white stripes? There are several fine resources that make the complications of categorising transitional silent-sound era films abundantly clear, especially the insightful essays here.
Kitty (1929) is sometimes cited as a contender for the title of Britain’s first talkie, but such claims are disingenuous at best. True, its original silent version was finished and released to the public before Blackmail, but not so with Kitty’s opportunistic sound version:
“Kitty, directed by Hitchcock’s contemporary and ex-colleague Victor Saville… was first completed and shown as a silent, after which it was withdrawn for the final two reels to be reshot with dialogue; the silent version is a very fine melodrama, but was at once eclipsed by the novelty of the part-talkie version, and it is the latter that history remembers. Its first six reels are identical with the silent, except that a synchronised music [and effects] track takes the place of live accompaniment; the switch to dialogue for reels seven and eight is abrupt, clumsy, and disorientating, as archivally-based television programmes from time to time remind us by using a clip of the transitional point to illustrate the crudities of that historical moment.” – Charles Barr, English Hitchcock (1999)
Incidentally, Saville shot those last two reels (or possibly three; see comments) of Kitty in the US, as the UK had no other suitable sound studio facilities at the time. While there, he also directed the remake of Woman to Woman (1923), one of the young Hitch’s apprenticeship films. Both versions of Kitty survive in good condition in the BFI archive here and here, so there’s a possibility one day we’ll all get to view each in its entirety and judge for ourselves how successfully it was retooled.
- First Experiments with Sound: Blackmail and Murder – Elisabeth Weis, The Silent Scream: AH’s Soundtrack (1982) info
- CUNY TV: Blackmail (1990) w/Weis
Surely you jest. (alt)
In lieu of Kitty’s appearance, for a great comparison to Blackmail check out The Informer, released just three months later; both its lovingly restored silent and sound versions complement each other perfectly on their US and UK releases. It was also shot at Elstree with many of the same cast and crew, and treads not-too dissimilar territory thematically, being a crime thriller with a plot driven by the female contingent of a love triangle on the wrong side of the law.
- The Screen in Blackmail – Deborah Linderman
- The Use of Glass in Blackmail – Stephen Brophy
- Blackmail: The Opening of Hitchcock’s Surrealist Eye – Harry Ringel
Criterion LaserDisc
It's interesting to compare the sound and silent versions of Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929) pic.twitter.com/zLVlBw653o
— Silent Movie GIFs (@silentmoviegifs) November 17, 2022
Since DVD brought about the demise of earlier home video formats such as VHS and LaserDisc, most of their then unique extras have thankfully been reused and recycled. The main exception in Hitch’s case is Criterion’s 1992 LaserDisc (spine #154) of Blackmail’s sound version. Its sleeve incorrectly states a runtime of 78 minutes but it’s actually 84:27. The only other two LDs, from Japan, are barebones with 82/83-minute transfers of poor quality, US public domain prints.
As the film wasn’t otherwise officially available on physical home video in the US until 2019, and then from Kino Lorber, Criterion’s unique extras haven’t been ported across to any other domestic releases. Of course, if Criterion ever do get to reissue it on a more recent format, they’re pretty certain to reuse them. There’s not much chance of that anytime soon though, as Kino only succeeded Lionsgate as licensees for Studiocanal’s properties in 2018.
It’s a real shame that Criterion very rarely license out any of their redundant extras to other companies for updated releases, especially their often brilliant audio commentaries. After all, they actually invented the format with their 1984 King Kong LD and could even establish a nice sideline in selling their spares as synchronisable MP3 files, as per alternative soundtracks of silent films such as Nosferatu. However, thanks to Hitch collector Matthew Hardesty, in Blackmail’s case you can listen to the commentary via the comments!
- Sound Test (00:42) with Hitchcock and Anny Ondra
- Directing the Kiss (00:33) silent short with “Hitchcock ‘trying’ to show star Cyril Ritchard how to initially attack co-star Ondra. Hitchcock himself boldly jumps right in at the chance to demonstrate on Ondra, not only attacking but tickling her and trying to peek under her skirt.” Hmm.
- The Voice from the Screen (1926) Vitaphone demonstration short (10:20) excerpts
- Audio commentary with Blackmail playwright and screenwriter Charles Bennett (91 and still sharp but somewhat retrogressive) w/additional material by documentarian-film historian Laurent Bouzereau, spoken by filmmaker Stuart Birnbaum.
- Sleeve essay by Bouzereau
The Voice from the Screen short also appeared on Criterion’s 1988 LaserDisc of Singin’ in the Rain (1952) but is more complete (15:31) and in superior quality on two special edition releases of The Jazz Singer. However, both edits omit several musical numbers from the full version (33:52). Check out these other related shorts:
- Finding His Voice (1929)
- Birthplace of the Sound Motion Picture (1930)
- Don Juan’s 50th anniversary (1976) | excerpts
- Listen to This (1978)
- The History of Sound at the Movies (2014)
- How the Movies Learnt to Talk (2016)
Yesterday’s Witness
Perhaps the ultimate Blackmail extra is one which has yet to surface on home video. Yesterday’s Witness was a BBC historical documentary series consisting of 50-minute episodes that ran from 1969–1977, with reruns until 1979. One instalment, “The Talkies Come to Britain” (1971), features Hitch giving his only TV interview on the making of Blackmail. Other interviewees include Johns Longden and Stuart, who between them appeared in eight of Hitch’s films beginning with his first, The Pleasure Garden. The programme was produced by Jane Oliver (1941–2013), who also conducted the interviews. It’s preserved safely in the BFI Archive and is viewable for free in the UK at the BFI Mediatheque (films). Due to potential licensing restrictions, this programme is only likely to see long overdue release on a UK region-locked format, if ever.
It’s all just fun and games: Hitch and stars Donald Calthrop, John Longden and Anny Ondra in her onscreen dad’s armchair on the set of Blackmail
Blackmail Collectors Guide, Pt 2: First talkies and MIA, Pt 3: Restorations and scores, Pt 4: Home video
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This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.
