A Closer Look at Blackmail (1929)

 

Alfred Hitchcock with Anny Ondra on the set of Blackmail

One of the purposes of a film's musical score is to assist the performers in eliciting a range of emotional responses from the audience such as fear, sadness, joy, or even pain. But what happens when a director makes the artistic choice to partially remove the score within a film? In the case of Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929), such a choice leaves us, as viewers, unsettled, forcing us to tap into the emotions of the main character without the familiar comfort of music directing us how to feel. Blackmail features one of my personal favorite sequences in early cinematic history, and as such, I felt compelled to simply put my thoughts to words in a little writing exercise by taking a look at some of the techniques Hitchcock used, as well as Anny Ondra's captivating performance, both of which I admire.

With the rise of talkies in the late 1920s, the beloved era of silent films was at its end. As major studios began the switch, much of the new sound process had yet to be explored. For being Hitchcock’s first film using sound as well as the first talkie filmed in England, Blackmail demonstrated an impressive early understanding and execution of this process by Hitchcock, predating many of the attempts of his contemporaries. As Czech actress Anny Ondra's heavy accent was evident, she was instead voiced by British actress Joan Barry for the sound version; Hitchcock would utilize Barry's talents a few years later by starring her in Rich and Strange (1931).

"I was asked to prepare the last reel in sound, because in those days when talk first came in, they used to advertise it as part-sound. And they made a novelty of the sound starting in the middle of the picture. When I knew that they were going to make the thing in sound, I was shooting in silence. I prepared in my own mind to make the whole film sound. If you looked at the film today, it's still a silent film, and practically with the people speaking titles."  -Alfred Hitchcock, 1962 

While the majority of this thriller contains a score by Jimmy Campbell and Reginald Connelly, the most impressive sequence of this production actually has minimal dialogue with a few moments of no added sound, neither music nor speaking. Hitchcock's most famous work using this strategy is certainly The Birds (1963) which has no score at all, however, with Blackmail we are able to witness a much earlier approach. The sequence I am referring to occurs barely more than half an hour into the film: Alice White (Ondra) is being attacked by a man behind a curtain in his apartment. This chilling event contains no background music. There is no intense, heart-stopping score, much like there would later be in 1960's Psycho (Hitchcock seemed to have a thing for curtains, didn't he?) There is nothing to distract us from Alice's desperate screams, nothing to mask the clanging of the bread knife against the bedside table as she reaches for it. We are victim to Alice’s struggle for survival, held captive by her terror.  

From there, the entire mood of the film abruptly shifts. Alice slowly emerges from behind the curtain, her eyes wide with panic and her moves robotic and stiff as she places the knife back onto the table. A soft musical score is placed here as Alice hurriedly changes back into her dress and flees the scene. The dizzying view from the set of stairs she descends parallels the one from Vertigo (1958). Still reeling with shock from what she’s done, Alice begins the suddenly impossible task of walking home. As she does so, she is taunted by traumatizing flashbacks, her mind warping her once mundane surroundings into a much more sinister version. Clock tower bells and taxi horns are amplified, drowning out the background score. The motioning sign of a cocktail shaker becomes a hand holding a knife, violently stabbing its victim. She walks as if she may step on a land mine at any moment, unable to get a steadying breath.

We revert back to a silent score when Alice sneaks back into the familiar sheets of her own bed. She is soon awoken by Mrs. White, who remains completely unsuspecting of Alice’s whereabouts the previous night. The shrill sounds of the morning birds can be heard outside the window as Alice, at war with the demons inside her own head, makes her way to her vanity in a hypnotic state. It is as if every inanimate object in the room is aware of the crime she has committed, even the mirror as she avoids making eye contact with her reflection. We do not need eerie music here to know that Alice is in a trance. We, as the audience, seem to be in it with her by this point.

"Very often, one is interested in seeing music provided for certain parts of a film, so that it becomes more dramatic when the music is suddenly cut off. That the audience have been lulled into it, and suddenly there's a silence. That's just as effective as though you had used all the brass and all the instruments in the orchestra."  -Alfred Hitchcock, 1972

The audience is continuously pulled into Alice's nightmarish daze as she makes her way downstairs to the family's business. She is now surrounded by people, yet she is entirely alone, lost to her spiraling mind. By choosing to not use music, the audience must rely only on visuals and the performance of the actors in the scene, and Ondra delivers. One can only imagine as an actor how incredibly difficult it must be to convey such intense emotions with the absence of dialogue. Ondra demonstrates profound distress using only her eyes, and it is chilling to watch. As the family sits down to breakfast, a visiting neighbor begins discussing the recent murder. The woman's repetitive use of the word "knife" is a technique that I've always found intriguing. Her voice slowly becomes more muffled, the words blurring together until it is an unintelligible garble with one reoccurring word remaining clear and unobstructed: “knife.” By this point, I was so deep into Alice's trance that I actually jumped slightly when the final "knife" is shrieked, just as Alice does, startling her enough to fling the bread knife off the table.

There is so much to love about this entire production that it is difficult to condense into one post. From the complicated staging of the scenes, to the well thought out camera movements, to the experiments with sound, Blackmail certainly deserves its spot in the Hitchcock hall of fame. It plays host to the birth of so many unique characteristics that the Master of Suspense would repeat many times throughout his filmography. Blackmail serves as just one of the many complex pictures of Hitchcock's, whose techniques prove timeless and will continue to be analyzed and appreciated for decades to come.

Image sources: filmaffinity.com