Before I Die #614: Blackmail

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This is the 614th movie I've now seen out of the 1,199 movies on the "Before You Die" list that I've gradually working my way through.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

A pretty curious early work from suspense master Alfred Hitchcock. It clearly displays some of his early mastery of the visual aspects of the medium, though the actual story itself drags more than it ought to, especially for a film only 85 minutes long.

The story follows Alice White, a young woman in 1920s London, who is "playing the field" a bit in terms of dating. Although seemingly attached to Scotland Yard detective Frank Webber, Frank pays far more attention to his work than to Alice. Perhaps for this reason she has begun to show interest in a new suitor - an artist named Mr. Crewe. One evening, after Alice deceptively blows off Frank, she meets Crewe and eventually is enticed up to his apartment. Crewe makes unwanted advances and eventually tries to rape Alice, who defends herself and ends up killing Crewe with a knife. Alice flees the scene. The next day, Frank and his fellow detectives arrive on the murder scene, where Frank secretly finds evidence that Alice is the killer in the form of a forgotten glove. He spirits it away and returns to her, but the two are soon confronted and blackmailed by a man, Tracy, who had quietly seen Alice entering Crewe's apartment. Tracy's blackmail attempts work for a short while, in small ways, but he is eventually suspected of murder himself. He is ultimately pursued and dies while trying to escape capture. Despite being off the hook, Alice seems to still be troubled by her conscience.

This was a fairly fascinating movie for a few reasons. This is the earliest Hitchcock movie I've seen, and one can certainly see many elements that are familiar in his pictures. There is a daring use of dark subject matter, such as attempted rape and successful murder, at the heart of the story. It also goes beyond merely being a crime procedural, offering gray areas in terms of who the guilty and innocent are. And then there is the psychological aspect, seen mostly obviously in Alice, who was clearly justified in defending herself against the aggressive advances of Crewe, but still feels the conflict of one who has killed a person. While I've seen some other contemporary films that utilized one or two of these themes, Blackmail is the earliest one I've seen that brings them all together through such a small-scale, personal story. For this, it certainly stands out.

Alice tries on a dress at the behest of Crewe. This little idea
is one that Hitchcock would later really run with in his more
classic movie Vertigo.

The aesthetic elements of the movie are a mixed bag. The set designs are good for the era, with many of them creating a distinctive sense of place. This is especially true in the dastardly Crewe's apartment, which I can still picture very easily in my mind, even these couple of weeks after I watched the movie. Staging certain scenes (or even whole movies) in a single, confined location is something that Hitchcock would do later with even greater success in films like Rope or Rear Window, and we get a preview of it here. The acting is fair enough, though still a tad too rooted in the physical showmanship more suited for stage acting. Strangely, the audio doesn't truly kick in until nearly 10 minutes into the movie. I've read that this is because Hitchcock had already begun filming when the British Film Institute (who was providing funding) decided to make the movie a sound picture. This shift doesn't exactly ruin anything, but it is rather noticeable.

Blackmail is a movie that has a clear place in the history of great cinema, even if it's not likely to become any person's favorite movie, or even anyone's favorite Hitchcock movie. While the brilliant director would go on to make many better films, this one clearly shows his talent when he was still relatively young. For this, it is worth a look for fans of the early sound era and Hitchcock's overall body of work.

That's 615 movies down. Only 584 to go before I can die. 

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