Blackmail (1929) on Netflix
Alice White's boyfriend, Scotland Yard detective Frank Webber, gives his attention to his cases rather than to her. She arranges to meet an artist, Mr. Crewe, at a tea house.
- Watch on NetflixThis title is not on Netflix right now. Please check back later for updates.
- Watch on Prime
- Watch on NordVPN
- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb6.9/1013,722 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Alice White's parents keep a tobacco shop in London, and she lives with them there. Her boyfriend is Frank Webber, a Scotland Yard detective who gives most of his time to the job. At a tea house one evening the two quarrel and Frank walks out, and Alice goes off with Mr. Crewe, an artist who had sent her a note. He persuades her up to his studio, sings while she tries on a dancer's costume, and then, when she asks to leave, tosses her dress out of reach.
Cast
- Ex-Det. Sergt. Bishopas The Detective Sergeant
- Johnny Ashbyas Boy
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Blackmail (1929)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Most sources say Alfred Hitchcock thought filming Blackmail in sound was absurd and shot almost the whole feature that way behind his producer's back, but in reality the largely finished silent version supplied several sequences with non-synchronous sound and dialogue.
- Lead actress Anny Ondra, raised in Prague, had a pronounced Czech accent felt unsuitable for Blackmail, and since post-dubbing was impossible in 1929, Joan Barry spoke the dialogue off-camera while Ondra lip-synched her lines.
SPOILER
Australian censors initially banned Blackmail, but the Appeal board reversed the ban and allowed the film to be shown with roughly 200 feet cut out: the sequence with the stabbing.- Without informing the producers, Alfred Hitchcock used the Schüfftan process to film the British Museum Reading Room scenes in Blackmail because the light levels there were too low for normal filming.
- Two future film directors worked on the Blackmail production: Ronald Neame operated the clapperboard and Michael Powell took the on-set publicity photographs.
- Blackmail started as a silent film before British International Pictures turned it into a separate sound film, and it became the first successful European talkie; a silent version was released for cinemas not equipped for sound.
- Blackmail was shot at the British and Dominions Imperial Studios soundstage in Borehamwood, which was the first purpose-built sound studio in Europe.
- The plot of Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022), produced by Gareth Neame, grandson of Blackmail crew member Ronald Neame, is partly inspired by Blackmail.
