Becoming Hitchcock: The Legacy of Blackmail (2024) Movie Script
1
[ Dark luminous music plays ]
Elvis Mitchell:
Alfred Hitchcock,
the director once said,
I want to be remembered as a man
who entertained millions
through the technique of film.
Hitchcock, or Hitch,
as his friends and family
called him,
is probably on
the very short list
of the most recognizable
directors of cinema.
He had a specific style
and explored themes repeatedly,
but through different stories
and characters,
and he knew
how to market himself.
Many classic actors
are identifiable through films
they made with Hitchcock,
and even when talking
about composer Bernard Herrmann,
for instance, he is immediately
connected to Hitchcock.
As years go by, however,
there's a tendency
to only focus
on a handful of his films,
but by looking at
his filmography,
one gets an overview
of Film History.
He started during the silent era
and found himself
at the junction
when sound appeared
with a film called "Blackmail."
"Blackmail," 1929,
is significant
in so many ways.
It marks a transition
from one technology to another,
and shows Hitchcock embracing
sound in a compelling
and experimental way.
[ Screams ]
Then there are so many themes
in the film itself
and of the titles surrounding it
that are part
of Hitchcock cinema.
While "Blackmail"
was already Hitchcock's 10th
fully completed
feature film,
it is one that can be seen
not only as one of his best,
but also one that developed
further the director's style
and his singular
cinematic eye...
[ Dish clatters ]
...and ear.
[ Birds chirping ]
"Blackmail,"
and those very early films
mark in many ways,
the birth
of the Hitchcock touch.
[ Projector whirring ]
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
[ Tense music plays ]
"Blackmail" is the story
of a young woman,
Alice White, Anny Ondra,
who murders an artist.
Crewe, Cyril Ritchard,
in self-defense.
She is blackmailed by a man
named Tracy, Donald Calthrop,
who saw them together,
but is protected
and ultimately saved
by her fianc,
Frank Webber,
John Longden,
the detective
in charge of the case.
Alice.
Lock that door.
"Blackmail,"
the play by Charles Bennett,
starred Tallulah Bankhead,
in the lead role of Alice.
It premiered at London's
Globe Theater in 1928
and was directed by
Raymond Massey,
himself an actor.
Bennett said that the road began
with Hitchcock attending
a performance of the play
one night,
and then asking to meet Bennett.
He plainly announced he wanted
to make this into a movie.
Bennett answered,
"Talk to my agent about it."
And so he did.
On "Blackmail,"
Bennett didn't adapt his play.
Alfred Hitchcock gets credit
on the film's adaptation
with Benn Levy
for the dialogue,
for the sound version.
"Blackmail" began
as a silent movie.
And as talking pictures
appeared.
Hitch had to deliver
a sound version of the film.
Sorry, sir. Full up.
We have
more room upstairs.
Go on.
I think I told you
there's more room upstairs.
Sorry, sir. Full up here.
More room up
Hey!
Both the silent
and the sound version
were eventually released.
It's interesting to mention
that most Hitchcock films
were based on existing material.
Novels,
short stories,
and plays.
There are few
original screenplays.
"North by Northwest,"
for instance,
was an original script
by Ernest Lehman,
another screenwriter with whom
Hitch had a strong relationship.
In fact,
Ernest Lehman once said,
"You realize very early on
when you're working with Hitch
that you're writing
for a star.
And that star
is Alfred Hitchcock."
John Michael Hays also wrote
four screenplays for Hitchcock.
And Alma Reville,
Hitchcock's wife,
greatly contributed
to everything Hitch did.
Man: Don't be silly, Alice.
Alice: Let me go!
Let me go!
[ Straining, grunting ]
[ Typewriter clacking ]
Mitchell: The writing
in his films was essential,
and was one of the
most important elements
in the success
of Hitchcock pictures.
[ Typewriter clacking ]
"One of my biggest problems
is writing,
and that is why
I can't make films more often,"
Hitchcock declared.
He also admitted with a wink,
"But of course I need writers.
I am a visual man,
but unfortunately,
I must also have delineation
of character and dialogue.
The plot I can depict,
but I must have characters
and good dialogue."
The first play that Hitch
adapted was "Downhill" in 1927,
followed that same year
by "Easy Virtue,"
based on the great
Noel Coward effort,
and "The Farmer's Wife" in 1928.
Even though it was all dialogue,
Hitchcock did his best to make
that film as visual as possible.
[ Lighthearted music plays ]
And have as few title cards
as possible.
[ Lighthearted music fades ]
This was good training ground
for "Blackmail."
"Blackmail"
was advertised as
"The first British
sound feature length film."
John Maxwell,
the producer of "Blackmail,"
set up a temporary
sound-stage studio
with RCA material imported
from the United States.
During the transition
between silent and sound,
films were advertised
as part sound films.
They had been shot silent,
but only the last reel
had sound.
Well, here we are.
I'm right up there. Top.
It seems that during
the production of "Blackmail,"
there would be a sound version.
In fact,
the silent version was released
after the talkie version
of "Blackmail."
Good evening, Miss White.
How are you?
I'm alright, thanks.
I haven't seen you
for a long time.
Therefore,
while shooting
the silent version
of "Blackmail,"
Hitchcock was thinking sound.
That's right.
Well,
I must push along.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night,
Frank.
Well, dear.
[ Pensive music plays ]
The first part of "Blackmail"
practically remains
a silent film.
No dialogue, pure visuals
showing detectives on the case.
[ Pensive music continues ]
There's an interesting shot of
the bad guy reading a newspaper,
Hitch would reproduce
a near similar shot,
in "Shadow of a Doubt."
The camera moved
to a mirror,
again,
a shot that Hitch reprized
many years later in "Topaz."
The scene in Scotland Yard
with the different stages
of the villain's arrest
is rich with details.
[ Dramatic music plays ]
It's almost like watching
a documentary.
Hitchcock will film
Henry Fonda's arrest
in "The Wrong Man" in 1957,
in a similar
documentary approach
detailing the steps
of the arrest.
The film was also based
on a true story.
"Blackmail"
is full of innovations,
but that was also true
of "The Ring,"
which the director called
"a Hitchcock picture"
had a scene
where our protagonist,
an up-and-coming boxer,
Jack Saunders,
imagines having to leave
his wife behind
whilst he goes on tour.
Look at how Hitch materializes
Jack's fear and suspicion
towards his wife's interest
in another man.
What could happen
if he left them alone?
[ Jazzy music plays ]
"Champagne"
was very much a comedy
with some interesting
visual gags.
A drunk man on a ship.
When the ship is steady,
he is barely on his feet.
When the ship is rocking,
he is steady.
There's also food being served,
where Hitch shows it
as a mess in the kitchen,
and how it eventually reaches
a table looking appetizing.
Among those early titles,
you find the seed of some
of Hitch's later films.
The state fair in "The Ring"
is echoed
in "Stage Fright"
and "Strangers on the Train."
The POV of a man drinking
from a glass in "Champagne"
can also be found in
"Spellbound."
The slapstick comedy
in that same film
is present in another
Hitchcock comedy.
"Mr. & Mrs. Smith."
the historical setting
of "Juno and the Paycock"
is in "Foreign Correspondent,"
"Saboteur" and "Lifeboat,"
for instance.
a costume ball party
in "Rich and Strange,"
is like in "To Catch a Thief."
For $9,000.
Once...
[ Gavel bangs ]
twice...
[ Gavel bangs ]
the third and last time.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
There's an auction scene
in "The Skin Game,"
just like in
"North by Northwest."
Auctioneer: $22.50 once.
$22.50 twice.
Last call.
$1,500.
There are many more examples
underlining that
the Hitchcock sensibility
was already forming,
not only during
those early years,
but in films that are
way different from the ones
that he would become
most known for.
We meet Anny Ondra.
Now, uh, Miss Ondra,
you asked me to let
you hear your voice
on the talking picture.
[ Chuckles ]
But, Hitch,
you mustn't do that.
Why not?
Well,
because I can't speak well.
Do you realize a squad
van will be here any moment?
No. Really. Oh, my gosh.
I'm terribly frightened.
Why? Have you been
a bad woman or something?
Well, not just bad.
But, er...
But you've slept
with men?
Oh, no! [ Laughs ]
You have not? Come here.
Stand in your place.
Otherwise it will
not come out right,
as the girl said
to the soldier.
[ Laughing ]
That's enough.
[ Laughter ]
Anny Ondra,
who plays Alice White,
a prophetic name,
as in "Alice in Wonderland,"
or so she thinks,
but instead falls
into a rabbit hole
and gets involved
with Murder.
In white, but first shown
dressed in black,
although after her ordeal
at the end,
dressed in bright colors,
ready to start over.
[ Gentle music plays ]
Anny Ondra, whose real name
was Anna Ondrkov,
was German and Czech.
She also starred in
"The Manxman," released in 1929,
which Hitchcock directed
a few months before "Blackmail."
"The Manxman" was Hitch's last
silent movie before "Blackmail,"
which included
some interesting shots.
But Ondra's career
in England was killed
when the talkies came in.
She returned to Germany
and appeared in a few films,
and then retired after marrying
prizefighter Max Schmeling.
Michael Powell,
who later became writer,
director, producer
of films such as...
...began his career at
British International Pictures.
"Although I was head
of the stills department,"
Powell wrote
in his autobiography,
"It was agreed
by Hitch and me
that I should personally shoot
all stills on his pictures.
I went down to Elm Street
to see him.
He was shooting
extra sound scenes
between Anny Ondra
and Cyril Ritchard,
her seducer in the film.
Anny had a Czech accent
you could cut with a knife.
So Hitch had hired a bright
young actress,
Joan Barry,
to speak Anny's
cockney lines off camera
while Anny mouthed them
in front of the camera.
It was a mad idea,
but it worked.
Unless you know that fact,
the switch is seamless."
Oh no, I don't think so.
Besides,
I have to go home soon.
I see it.
Michael Powell continues,
"Hitch was listening
to the scene
on a dead set of earphones.
He waved to me
and I waved back,
And then I looked around.
Where was Jack Cox,
the director of photography?
Where was the soundproof camera?
I edged carefully
around the set
to where the camera was
presumably hidden,
and found it
in a sort of sweat box
which contained the camera
and the whole camera crew."
By the way,
Ronald Neame,
the director of
"The Poseidon Adventure,"
among others,
was assistant cameraman
on "Blackmail."
Visuals and camera movements
were always important
to Hitchcock.
"I don't decry dialogue,"
Hitch once said,
"but I feel that technique
is not necessarily cinematic."
He told French filmmaker
Francois Truffaut
for the iconic interview book
"Hitchcock/Truffaut"
that to him,
silent movie-making
was the purest form of cinema.
But that didn't stop Hitch
from experimenting.
In "Murder!," at one point,
Herbert Marshall is shaving,
listening to the radio.
He has a stream
of consciousness monologue,
something quite novel
at the time.
Had to drink a drop of brandy.
For that scene,
Hitch had an orchestra
playing music live,
but off screen.
[ Orchestral music playing ]
I'm sure I was right
when I raised that point,
and I feel more certain now.
How did we know that someone
else didn't drink the brandy?
Perhaps there was someone else.
That's the whole thing.
Whoever drank that brandy
[ Knock on door ]
Alice is one of Hitchcock's
complicated blondes.
She starts off as one
of Hitchcock's
strongest female characters.
I must be getting home.
You are frightened?
I'm certainly not.
Take more than the man
to frighten me.
Yeah. [Chuckles]
That's what I thought.
She is in love
with her boyfriend Frank,
but is bored with him
and wants to explore
other potential,
namely an artist.
She lies to Frank
and hooks up with a guy.
What happens next
is literally a journey
to get her to realize that
Frank is the right man for her.
You find that theme
throughout the Hitchcock oeuvre.
For example, in "Stage Fright,"
Eve, played by Jane Wyman,
falls in love with a detective
while trying to prove that a man
she loves is innocent of murder,
but is in fact a killer.
"Blackmail" also announces
more directly
Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder,"
based on a hit play by
Frederick Knott,
in which Tony Wendice,
Ray Milland, arranges the murder
of his adulterous wife,
Margot, Grace Kelly.
But when the killer strikes
attempting to strangle
his victim,
Margot grabs a pair of scissors
and stabs the man in the back.
A scene reminiscent
of "Blackmail,"
in which Anny Ondra
stabs the man
who is trying to rape her.
[ Gasping ]
You think Margot is lucky
to have escaped murder,
but things turn against her
when her liaison
with Mark Halliday,
Robert Cummings, surfaces.
The husband made it look
like the killer
was blackmailing Margot.
She loses the sympathy
of the jury
and is condemned to death
for murder.
The detective in charge,
John Williams,
is skeptical, however,
and with Mark's help
manages to prove
Margot's innocence.
Like Anny Ondra's own journey
in "Blackmail,"
what is memorable about
Grace Kelly
in "Dial M for Murder"
is her transformation
throughout the film.
We'd better drop in here
first and have a drink.
Mitchell: She goes from
glamorous and sexy
to vulnerable and defeated.
What's the matter with me,
Mark?
I don't seem able to feel
anything.
Hitchcock did
a masterful job making
making a seemingly
unsympathetic character
she is, after all,
cheating on her husband
completely sympathetic.
The audience roots for her
even before we find out
the husband's murderous
intentions.
Many years later,
the consequence of impulse
like Alice's own desire
to hook up with Crewe,
the artist in "Blackmail"
would be deadly for Janet Leigh
in Hitchcock's "Psycho."
There is a blonde
who would change the face
of thrillers and cinema
altogether.
There are many other blondes
in Hitchcock's films,
but truly, the impulsive
one started with "Blackmail."
Alice and Frank
go to Lyon's Corner Hall,
a popular spot in London.
It's a fascinating scene
to watch.
There, something happened
that shows
Hitchcock's brilliance
at setting things up.
Frank,
I've lost one
of my gloves.
I think I left it
at the other table.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
[ Laughter ]
[ Indistinct chatter continues ]
[ Mid-tempo orchestral music
playing ]
Is this it?
Yes, thanks.
Hm, thought so.
There's a hole
in two fingers.
Would you like a pair of
nail scissors for Christmas?
Funny, aren't you?
And later,
she loses her glove again
at the home
of the man she kills.
It's the perfect payoff
when Frank finds the glove
when investigating the murder.
[ Dramatic musical sting ]
He knows it was her.
On one hand,
by keeping the evidence,
he is protecting her.
On the other,
Alice becomes, in a way,
his prisoner forever,
since he is the only one
who knows the truth.
In "Blackmail,"
Hitchcock makes
his cameo appearance
on a subway train sitting
behind John Longden,
who is across
from Anny Ondra.
Hitchcock had appeared in
a silent thriller, "The Lodger,"
in 1926,
three years before "Blackmail."
"It all started with a shortage
of extras in my first thriller,"
Hitchcock once said.
"I was in for a few seconds
as an editor
with my back to the camera.
It really wasn't much,
but I played it to the hilt.
Since then,
I have been trying to get into
every one of my pictures.
It isn't
that I like the business,
but it has an impelling
fascination that I can't resist.
When I do it, the cast,
the grips and the cameramen,
and everyone else gather
to make it as difficult
as possible for me.
But I can't stop now."
Hitchcock said, regarding
his cameo roles,
that he tried to keep
those roles as short as possible
so that he wouldn't
have to suffer the indignity
of being an actor any longer
than necessary.
He also liked
to get this gimmick over with
early in his films,
so that the audience wouldn't
just sit there looking for him.
[ Train whistle blows ]
Hitchcock like trains.
[ Train engine chugging ]
He appeared on a train
in "Shadow of a Doubt."
He's playing cards
with another passenger.
He is coming out of a train
station with Gregory Peck,
in "The Paradine Case,"
and trying to climb
aboard a train holding
holding a cello case in
"Strangers on a Train."
[ Bell clanging ]
Menier: It's proving
astonishingly difficult
to find the right person
for one particular part.
Might I ask you
to stand up for one moment?
The really frightening thing
about villains
is their surface likableness.
Menier: You know Bennett,
he looks it.
He looks it
quite perfectly.
Exactly what
I've been thinking, Sir John.
An Agatha Christie
type character
in Hitchcock's "Suspicion" says
about the villains
in her mystery novels...
I was completely fascinated
by the way your villain
My villain?
My hero you mean.
I always think of
my murderers as my heroes?
That quote seems to parallel
Hitchcock's own approach
to the bad guys
in his films.
I'm afraid you're wasting
your time.
You see, she can
neither here nor speak.
"I always make my villains
charming and polite,"
the director said.
Do you mind?
Hmm?
Hands up.
"It's a mistake to think
that if you put
a villain on screen,
he must sneer nastily,
stroke his black mustache,
or kick a dog in the stomach.
Some of the most famous
murderers in criminology,
men for whom arsenic
was so disgustingly gentle
that they did women in
with a blunt instrument,
had to be charmers to
get acquainted with the females
they eventually murdered."
Will you search
this gentleman?
I take it
you've no objection.
I don't mind.
In "Blackmail,"
Hitch said that the shadow
to suggest a mustache
on the artist's face
was his farewell
to the silent films.
Hitchcock was a master
at making his villains
almost as charming
as his heroes.
They all seem
to possess a sense of humor,
and though their view
of the world was sinister,
they kept smiles on their faces.
I'm so sorry, Sir John.
I'm afraid I understand
so little about playwriting.
I always think
a girl knows instinctively
when she
can trust a man.
Yes, of course she does.
Do you trust me...Alice?
In "Blackmail," there are,
in essence, two villains,
Crewe, the artist,
truly a champagne villain,
And Tracy the blackmailer,
a sleazy type.
This again will become
a bit of a staple for Hitch.
Look at "Dial M"
suave Ray Milland,
the mastermind behind the
attempted killing of his wife
and the creepy henchman
he hires,
played by Anthony Dawson.
Another example
might include Mr. Krug
from "Foreign Correspondent."
Krug has a sketchy history,
as revealed by
the scar on his neck
hidden under
his turtleneck sweater
versus Stephen Fisher,
played by Herbert Marshall,
who never gets his hands dirty.
Marshall had also appeared in
"Murder!"
in a much more likable role.
Also think of silky James Mason
versus his dedicated-to-a-fault
subordinate
played by Martin Landau in
"North by Northwest."
Rotten.
[ Laughing ]
Never mind.
We'll finish this masterpiece
together.
That's the idea.
Art and framing
take a special place
in Hitchcock's body of work.
[ Dark luminous music plays ]
The painting of a court jester
is a very important image
in "Blackmail."
[ Laughing ]
Hitchcock, himself a great
appreciator of art and fashion,
had an eye for paintings
in his work.
Think about a few examples
a painting
of Carlotta Valdes
and the self-portrait
that Midge does
of herself in "Vertigo" later.
The portrait in "Rebecca,"
or the one done by Bruno's mom
in "Strangers on a Train."
The painting of Joan Fontaine's
father in "Suspicion,"
or the painting
in the hallway
that an inspector looks at
enigmatically
in a separate scene.
The bird stuck
on a painting in "The Birds."
John Forsythe is a painter
in "Trouble with Harry,"
and Hitch collaborated
with Salvador Dal
to visualize the dream sequence
in "Spellbound."
In "Blackmail,"
the court jester painting
makes a big statement
until the end of the film.
There.
Oh!
You are awful.
[ Chuckles ]
In the scene where Crewe
asks Alice to change,
Hitchcock uses almost
a split screen device.
The artist playing
the piano on one side
while we're put in
the position of a voyeur,
with Alice undressing
on the other.
Voyeurism
would be a central theme
to "Rear Window," for instance,
where Jimmy Stewart
uses a camera
to look across at his neighbors.
In "Blackmail,"
Alice goes from black,
possibly woman in control,
to white,
pretty much hinting
at a virginal,
untouched look.
Prove unpleasant
for the latter
The camera is telling
two stories.
Anny Ondra is nervous
while Cyril Ritchard
is getting excited.
The soundtrack tells us
the third story through music.
Miss Up-to-Date
The song describes
the situation
in the most literal sense,
"Miss Up-to-Date"
about a wild,
pretty, and naughty
girl meeting an awful fate.
They say you're wild
A naughty child
Miss-up-to-date
For whom if you predict
For you an awful fate
The song sets the stage
for what's about to happen.
But look at the difference
between the silent version
and the sound version
of that same scene.
And that's a song
about you, my dear.
[ Chuckles ]
You haven't said
how you liked it.
It's quite a lesson on
how Hitchcock adapted
to this new
revolutionary technique.
Wait a minute.
Where is this trouble?
This scene, which was probably
quite shocking at the time,
introduces yet another theme
that preoccupied
Hitchcock's characters
Sex.
[ Gentle music plays ]
"My attitude towards sex,"
Hitchcock said,
"is the same as it is
to other aspects of my work
'understatement' all the time.
I'm not a believer
in hanging sex all over women.
It should be discovered
in the story."
This quote applies perfectly
to what is happening here
between Anny Ondra
and Cyril Ritchard.
Hitchcock didn't have
complete nudity in his films
until "Frenzy" in 1972.
However, he shocked
the nation in 1960
when he showed Janet Leigh
in her sexy bra in "Psycho."
And used that image
for the poster of the film.
This is one of the scenes
that Hitchcock had to reshoot
For the sound version
of "Blackmail."
[ Gentle music swells ]
At the Lincoln Center tribute
for Alfred Hitchcock,
Cyril Ritchard recalled
that in that scene,
mics were hidden all
over the set."
[ Up-tempo piano tune playing ]
"And I had to talk into
the first one
and then another
as I walked about,
sometimes having to pause
in mid-sentence..."
That's an idea.
"...while I walked
out of the range
of one microphone
into the second."
Let's see it on you.
"I thought
that Anny and I
were getting a little glazed
from shooting
the scene so many times.
It turned out
that Hitch had substituted
real gin in our glasses."
Oh, it's so strong.
"To give the scene
a bit more 'vitality.'"
[ Up-tempo piano music plays ]
There it is.
[ Up-tempo playing continues ]
[ Discordant final note play ]
We are now reaching
the turning point in our story
as the curtain rises on murder.
Hitchcock had different ways of
killing his victims in movies...
[ Sinister music plays ]
...mainly strangulation
and stabbing,
like in "Blackmail."
[ Sinister music continues ]
Other killings with knives
or sharp objects
are featured
in the following films
In "Murder!," a woman was killed
with a pointy fire poker.
In "The 39 Steps,"
a spy is stabbed in the back.
[ Gasps shakily ]
[ Groans, gasps ]
In "Sabotage,"
Sylvia Sidney kills her husband
with a kitchen knife.
In "Dial M for Murder,"
Grace Kelly kills her assailant
with a pair of scissors.
In "Rear Window,"
a man cuts up his wife
with sharp instruments.
[ Sinister music continues ]
In the second version of
"The Man Who Knew Too Much,"
released in 1956,
a man is stabbed
in the back.
In "North by Northwest,"
a man at the United Nations
is also stabbed,
but in "Torn Curtain,"
a knife fails to kill
an East Berlin security officer.
And of course,
in "Psycho"...
[ Screams ]
...Janet Leigh and Martin Balsam
are both stabbed to death
in two separate scenes.
[ Sinister music continues ]
Don't be silly, Alice.
Like he did with nudity,
Hitchcock was careful
to use violence
in the best possible taste.
Alice: Let me go!
Let me go!
"People ask me constantly,"
Hitchcock declared,
"Why are you so interested
in crime?
The truth is, I'm not.
I'm only interested in
that it affects my profession."
At the same time, the director,
who was born in England
and lived there a good part
of his life,
acknowledged that crime had
always been an English passion.
[ Alice grunting ]
Visually, Hitchcock filmed
murders with style.
"Blackmail"
is no exception,
but it happens behind a curtain.
"Blackmail"
is also self-defense,
as we will see again in
"Dial M for Murder."
[ Dark, gloomy music plays ]
Ondra delivers
a brilliant performance
through attitude
and body language.
Look at how she strikes
the painting laughing at her.
[ Canvas rips ]
She breaks the fourth wall
in the same way
that Norman Bates would
in "Psycho"
as she walks towards us.
[ Dark, gloomy music continues ]
Hitchcock dissolves
from a close up of Ondra's face
to a long shot of the studio.
While the dissolve technique
is typically used to indicate
to the audience a time lapse.
Here there is no disruption
of the temporal continuity.
Look at a freeze frame of
Ondra's face in the dissolve,
and compare it to that of Norman
Bates at the end of psycho.
The effect and resulting
subliminal image you get
are almost similar.
Hitchcock's brilliant visual
storytelling is in full swing
as she is drifting,
following the killing.
[ Melancholy music plays ]
Everything reminds her of it.
In a similar way,
Hitchcock will express
Jimmy Stewart's vertigo
literally.
In "Marnie,"
she's afraid of red,
and we see it.
[ Frantic music plays ]
Here, he gives us
more visual information
that reflects Anny Ondra's
own state of mind.
She's dizzy and confused.
Hitchcock used some
interesting visual associations
to convey Alice's state of mind.
Film historian
Gene D. Phillips points this out
in his book on Alfred Hitchcock
that analyzes imagination.
[ Horns honking ]
The cocktail shaker on the scene
suddenly turns into
a phallic knife,
stabbing at the first syllable
of the word "cocktail,"
leaving no doubt about the link
between the lethal weapon
that Alice employed
to defend her purity,
and the sexual weapon Crewe
had intended to use on Alice.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
The director's understanding
of sound, music,
visuals is masterful,
and is in contrast
by the following segment,
which is pure silent movie.
The dissolve at the door
is another reminder
that Alice has a dream-like
relation to time.
[ Suspenseful music continues ]
Just when we think
that Alice is safe,
the shadow
of the blackmailer appears.
And of course,
this creates suspense.
According to Hitchcock,
the essential element
of suspense
was always to let the audience
know more than the hero.
Let them know that there is a
bomb under the character's seat.
Let them suffer as they see
the characters of the drama
grope for solutions
they already know.
"It was much easier,"
Hitchcock said
regarding the silent era.
"There were no nuances of
dialogue to be concerned with,
and the acting
was much more elemental.
The whole atmosphere
was more relaxed."
For instance,
there's an interesting scene
in "The Farmer's Wife"
that underlines this point.
Unable to find a wife,
the protagonist of the story
stares at an empty chair.
Ghostly images of women
he met appear.
Then...
[ Romantic music plays ]
...the woman he loves
comes and sits,
and he realizes she is the one.
[ Romantic music fades ]
In "Murder!,"
a couple comes to meet Sir John
and to convey the fact
that they're intimidated...
How do you do,
Mr. Markham?
As a man advances
towards him,
Hitchcock had him
on something soft.
Probably a mattress of some kind
rather than a hard floor.
How do you do,
Sir?
Why don't you
sit down?
After the murder,
Hitchcock explains visually
that Alice is now in a trance.
[ "Miss Up-to-Date"
tune plays hauntingly ]
The music on the soundtrack
is the slow version
of the song Cyril Ritchard
was playing on the piano
before his death.
Hitchcock understood perfectly
the importance
of music in film.
He uses the "Miss Up-to-Date"
tune here as a cynical touch.
It's as if he's saying to us,
"See, I told you so."
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
Here is a great use of sound.
Alice is roaming the streets.
She sees a man asleep
in a corner.
His hand reminds her
of the man she killed.
[ Screams ]
Then we cut with a scream
to the landlady,
finding the victim's body.
Hitchcock also used sound
to mark a narrative transition,
as in the case of
"The 39 Steps."
In that film, a landlady finds
a corpse of a woman.
[ Woman screams,
train whistle blares ]
We immediately cut
the loud whistling
of a train leaving the station,
and on board is Richard Hannay,
the man who will
be wrongly accused of the crime.
In "Young and Innocent,"
two women discover
the lifeless body
of a victim washed ashore
as they're about to scream...
[ Seagulls squawking ]
...Hitchcock cuts to the sound
of seagulls above,
an ominous foreshadowing
of "The Birds,"
where Jessica Tandy,
who played Rod Taylor's mother,
goes to visit
a neighboring farmer.
She enters his house,
notices that all the cups
that hang on hooks
in the kitchen have been broken.
She goes towards the bedroom
and finds the poor man dead.
The instinct here would
have been to have her scream,
but Hitchcock knows better.
Instead,
she runs out of the house,
completely unable
to make a sound.
[ Muted scream ]
It's as if the scream
is strangled in her throat.
And it is we in our seats
who want to scream,
because the absence of it
on the soundtrack is so potent.
What do you think?
There's been a murder
last night around the corner.
Another use
of sound in "Blackmail"...
And they tell me the police
are round there now.
...of a bird chirping
allows Hitch to play up
the contrast
between Alice's internal world,
the trauma she suffered,
and the otherwise innocent world
that surrounds her.
[ Bird chirps merrily ]
And all that,
under the watchful eye
of her boyfriend Frank,
a framed photo of him
on her wall.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
Because Hitchcock had started
making movies
in the silent era,
there was a sense that he
understood to a greater degree,
perhaps over directors
who came afterwards,
the potential power
of a soundtrack.
But the pice de rsistance,
the true mark
of Hitchcock genius,
and his understanding of sound
takes place over breakfast.
A good clean, honest
whack over the head
with a brick is one thing.
There's something British
about that.
But knives...
The news
of the crime is everywhere.
Alice is at a table and is
asked to cut a slice of bread
while a neighbor, or maybe
she's just a regular customer,
tells everyone present
about the murder,
but all we hear is each time
the woman
says the word "knife."
...knife.
Man: Alice cut us a bit
of bread, will you?
The rest of her dialogue
is purposely garbled.
[ Muffled speech ]
...knife.
The poor girl responsible
for the killing
is hesitant
in handling the knife.
[ Muffled speech ]
...the knife...
[ Muffled speech ]
...musn't use a knife!
[ Knife clatters ]
And eventually drops it
when the neighbor delivers
one last and loud "knife."
Man: Really you ought to be
more careful.
You might have cut
somebody with that.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
Mitchell: But now,
observe the same scene
in the silent version.
[ Suspenseful music continues ]
[ Suspenseful music swells ]
[ Suspenseful music fades ]
Hitchcock's manipulation
of the word knife
in the talkie version
announces other important sounds
in Hitch's films.
Like in both versions of
"The Man Who Knew Too Much"...
[ Scream echoes ]
...the unforgettable scream.
[ Blood-curdling scream ]
[ Cymbal crashes ]
...meant to prevent
an assassination.
Screams, of course,
are trademark of anything scary.
[ Curtain rattles ]
[ Screaming ]
As is the anticipation
of the scream in "Frenzy,"
as a secretary
returns to her office.
But Hitchcock keeps his camera
outside on the street.
[ Footsteps receding ]
We know she is about to discover
that her boss
has been strangled.
We wait...
and wait until,
to our great relief,
we hear the horrifying scream.
[ Blood-curdling scream ]
But Hitchcock sometimes
used prosaic sounds
to provide suspense,
as in an amazing sequence
in "Torn Curtain,"
when Paul Newman,
aware that he is being followed,
tries to lose his tail
by going into a museum.
Hitchcock in that scene
creates a score using
only footsteps...
[ Footsteps tapping ]
...sounding against the marble
floors of the galleries.
[ Footsteps tapping ]
The pacing of the sound alone
is what drives the action
and suspense.
Later silence is as important
when Newman is forced
to kill Gromek,
Wolfgang Kieling,
an East German security
officer who is onto him.
The murder takes place
in a kitchen
and in order to not alert the
taxi driver waiting outside...
[ Cabinet clatters ]
[ Windows clatter ]
...Newman tries his best
to keep the man from screaming.
He and a woman end up dragging
Gromek on the floor
and shoving his head
inside a gas oven.
[ Both panting ]
[ Gromek groaning ]
It's really the struggle
to keep the man silent
that creates
the suspense.
Well did anyone else
enter the house that night?
Ad lady says not.
Girl says not.
They were alone.
That's right.
All: Any answer to that,
Sir John?
Mitchell: There's also a similar
approach to sound in "Murder!"
See the cadence in that scene.
But no one else
could have done the murder.
'Cause they were alone.
Says they quarreled.
Admits it.
That's right.
All: Any answer to that,
Sir John?
She does not admit it.
She says
she doesn't remember.
A totally abstract approach
that takes full advantage
of what sound offered
to filmmakers like Hitch.
Man:
And not against all of us.
Man #2: Make an exhibition
of yourself.
Man #3: Waste of time.
Woman: Waste of my
quality brandy.
Man:
Hands all over blood.
All: Any answer? Any answer?
Any answer to that,
Sir John?
I hope you don't mind
if I have something to eat,
but I'm rushed today.
[ Plucky music plays ]
Hitchcock's greatest
preoccupation
was food.
"Cinema is not a slice of life.
It's a piece of cake,"
Hitchcock said.
Food plays an important part
in many Hitchcock films.
In "Blackmail,"
Alice and Frank
had their argument
at a restaurant.
Alice killed Crewe with a knife
that was placed next
to a loaf of bread.
The news of the murder takes
place at the breakfast table,
and later the blackmailer will
conduct his business over food.
"A few years ago in
Santa Rosa, California,
I caught a side view of myself
in a store window
and screamed with fright,"
Hitchcock once said about
his rather corpulent figure.
[ Plucky music continues ]
"Since then,
I limit myself
to a three-course dinner
of appetizer,
fish, and meat
with only one bottle
of vintage wine
with each course."
On another occasion,
he said,
"It's been my observation
that a man does not live
by murder alone.
He needs affection, approval,
encouragement,
and occasionally a hearty meal.
[ Plucky music continues ]
Food was as abundant
in his films
as it was on his table.
The Hitchcocks would, in fact,
bring their own cook
to Hollywood.
[ Plucky music continues ]
This fascination with food
made it to the screen.
Hitchcock loved to show
his characters eating
and discussing food,
but his own commentary
on the subject was best.
This applied to both
his culinary predilection
as well as his preference
for visuals revealing seduction,
marriage,
relationship and murder,
you know, appetites.
[ Plucky music continues ]
His gastronomic sensibility
also extended
to the graphic nature
of violence,
as evidenced
in his observation that,
"There will obviously be
a lot of drama
in the steak that is too rare."
Mmm!
Best meal
I've tasted for ages.
[ Utensils clatter ]
[ Man slurping noisily ]
[ Boat creaking ]
[ Slurping continues ]
[ Creaking continues ]
[ Slurping continues ]
In "Rear Window,"
Grace Kelly is bringing food
to Jimmy Stewart.
Ah.
Her way of suggesting
he should marry her.
There is a similar scene
in "Notorious"
where Ingrid Bergman
invites Cary Grant for dinner,
hinting at how wonderful
it is to eat in style...
I've decided we
are going to eat in style.
Marriage must be wonderful
with this sort of thing
going on every day.
...and hinting
at a married life.
But it's also over food
that in "Rear Window,"
Stewart and Thelma Ritter
discuss murder
and the neighbors
across the way.
Since we haven't witnessed
any crime,
the only reaction we get
from the gruesome
speculative details
spilled out by Thelma Ritter...
That's the only place
where we could have washed
away the blood.
...is through watching
Jimmy Stewart lose his appetite.
The most celebrated line
about food
in a Hitchcock film
may be in "To Catch a Thief"
when Grace Kelly innocently,
or perhaps not so,
asked Cary Grant
over a picnic basket...
You want a leg
or a breast?
You make the choice.
A similar conversation is
featured between Eva Marie Saint
and Grant
in "North by Northwest,"
as he sits across from her
in a dining car on a train,
and she declares
that she never discusses love
on an empty stomach.
I never discussed love
on an empty stomach.
You've already eaten.
But you haven't.
When they're kissing later
in the train compartment
their exchange
has to do with
Cary Grant having taste
in food, clothes, and women.
Same taste and women.
"Rope" is completely centered
on a meal served on a chest
in which
a murder victim is hidden.
Placing candlesticks
on the chest,
one of the killers
proudly observes
that they suggest a ceremonial
altar from which the guests,
including the family, friends
and girlfriend of the dead man,
will be eating
our sacrificial feast.
I think they suggest
a ceremonial altar,
which you can heap with the
foods for our sacrificial feast.
Later on, it is mentioned
that Farley Granger's character,
the other killer, is quite good
at "strangling chickens."
A discussion of death and murder
takes place at the table
in "Suspicion,"
"Strangers on a Train,"
and others, including "Frenzy,"
in which the wife
of the detective
in charge of the necktie murders
experiments with
mostly repulsive-looking
nouvelle cuisine
throughout the film,
adding a layer of humor...
It's delicious.
...to the progress
of the investigation.
But I find the...
ingredients are
somewhat mystifying.
The killer Bob Rusk,
played by Barry Foster,
works at a fruit market
and hides one of the bodies
in a potato bag.
He later has to retrieve
a piece of evidence,
his tie pin,
which the victim grabbed
when she was being strangled.
And of course,
food is on the menu in "Psycho."
You never did
eat your lunch, did you?
I better get back
to the office.
These
extended lunch hours
give my boss
excess acid.
From the first scene
where Janet Leigh
and John Gavin
meet to have sex
during her lunch hour,
to her last meal
with Norman Bates,
a simple sandwich
and a glass of milk
during which he observes...
You...You eat like a bird.
You know,
of course.
In "Rebecca,"
Mrs. Danvers terrorizes
the second Mrs. de Winter...
I'd like to know
if you approve of the menu.
...by asking her to fill in
blank spaces on the menu
with suggestions for sauces.
I've left a blank space
for the sauce.
In "The Paradine Case,"
Lord Horfield,
played by Charles Laughton,
observes on one hand
that Ann Todd
is very appetizing.
You look very,
very appetizing.
She replies in fashion...
Charming compliment
from such a gourmet
as yourself,
Lord Horfield.
Part of the plot
of the second version
of "The Man Who Knew Too Much"
unfolds in a restaurant
in Morocco,
with Jimmy Stewart being unable
to eat the local food properly.
Hitchcock declared
he hated eggs.
No surprise, then,
in "To Catch a Thief,"
that Jessie Royce Landis
puts out a cigarette
in an egg dish.
Not literally.
There's also a suggestion
in "The Birds"
that birds are getting
their revenge on mankind
because we've been eating them.
His trailer for "The Birds"
began with Hitchcock
eating chicken.
I've come to feel
very close to the birds,
and I've come to realize
how they feel when...
[ Quizzical music plays ]
I don't think I'll eat just now.
Hardly proper
with all of you here.
Mitchell: Similarly,
he introduced "Frenzy"
by standing in front
of a bag of potatoes.
And the horrors of vegetables.
I've heard of a leg of lamb,
a leg of chicken,
but never a leg of potatoes.
[ Jaunty music plays ]
The examples of food
in Hitchcock's films go on.
the systematic and almost
compulsive inclusion
of something as common
as food in cinema
was, on Hitchcock's part,
another device
to engage his audience
with his plots and characters,
A way to wet our appetite
and keep our attention to alert
and on edge.
A way to keep us wanting more,
coming back,
and asking for seconds.
[ Jaunty music crescendos
and ends ]
Perhaps it's
rather fortunate
that your little secret,
uh, only came into the hands
of a man like me.
Do you know
there are some men
who would make money
out of a thing like that?
What a chance
for blackmail.
Tracy, the blackmailer here
is played by Donald Calthorpe,
who was mainly a stage actor
and whose film appearances
were usually as villains.
Calthorpe worked with Hitchcock
on three other films
"Elstree Calling,"
"Murder!,"
and "Number Seventeen."
Michael Powell recalled
in his autobiography,
"Hitch had already decided
that Donald Calthorpe,
a complex and brilliant actor,
would play the blackmailer.
Calthorpe came of a famous
and gifted theatrical family.
He despised films
but liked money.
Opinions that are often combined
in the superb piece
of screen acting.
I looked everywhere
for that...
other glove last night.
But of course, you detectives
are better trained
at finding these things.
For fun, look at the way
Hitchcock frames the actors
and how there's an ad
that spells out "sex to come."
Clearly a reference
to what led to this situation.
Calthorpe is not the only
blackmailer in Hitchcock films.
The standouts would be
Ray Milland,
who blackmails a man
into killing his wife
in "Dial M for Murder."
There's blackmail in
"I Confess,"
in Strangers on a Train,"
or even in "Rebecca"
with the line...
Blackmail is not much
of a profession.
[ Dark luminous music plays ]
John Longden,
who was a British leading man
in the early '30s
and who played the role
of Frank,
had this to say about
his experience on "Blackmail."
"I don't remember any feeling
that it was
an historical occasion."
Like Cyril Ritchard,
John Longden had
a difficult time adjusting
to the microphones
and the new sound techniques.
He said, "Besides tending
to produce a crick in my neck,
it hardly contributed to the
smooth portrayal of my part."
But this is not the only
Hitchcock film
in which a detective
chooses love over duty.
Why didn't you tell me?
In "Sabotage,"
Sylvia Sidney kills her husband
with a kitchen knife
over dinner.
Only a detective who was in
love with Sylvia Sidney
knows of the crime.
As she is about to confess
to the police...
He's dead.
[ Bomb explodes ]
...a bomb
then destroys her home
along with the evidence
of her crime.
Rather unfortunate,
the way that poor man
round the corner
er, died last night.
During the whole confrontation
with the blackmailer...
Perhaps it's fortunate...
...Alice is nervous,
but Frank defends her.
That a suspicious
looking man
with a criminal record
was seen hanging
around.
What's interesting
in "Blackmail"
is that the story swerves
from the detective's
ethical choice
of apprehending
the culprit...
Don't you try and swing
this thing on me.
That won't get you
anywhere.
...to protecting her instead.
Frank even goes
further by implying
to shift the blame to a person
who did not commit the crime.
Rather unfortunate that
Scotland Yard are at present
looking for that man.
The blackmailer is dodgy
and has a criminal background,
but he did not kill the artist.
In this he is innocent.
But that doesn't stop Frank.
[ Tense, dramatic music plays ]
Hey!
The chase of the villain
and the climax
at the British Museum
is pure Hitchcock.
The villain gets to the top
of the museum.
It's not me you want.
It's him.
Ask him!
Why his own
[ Glass shatters ]
And eventually
falls through the roof
into the galleries below.
The fall in
"Blackmail" is echoed
in "The Man Who Knew Too Much"
at the Royal Albert Hall,
Mount Rushmore
in "North by Northwest,"
The Statue of Liberty
in "Saboteur,"
The mission in "Vertigo,"
Even in "Murder!"
the killer,
realizing
that he has been revealed,
hangs himself during
a circus act.
[ Crowd screaming ]
The chase
is an essential element
in many Hitchcock movies.
Hitchcock developed
his taste for chase scenes,
mainly through books.
"I have derived more
from novelists like John Buchan,
J.B. Priestley,
John Galsworthy,
and Marie Belloc Lowndes
than from movies,"
Hitchcock said.
"I like them
because they use multiple chases
and a lot of psychology.
My chases are the result
of using all of the resources
of modern film technique,
combined with what I got
from these novelists."
[ Train engine chugging ]
For Hitchcock,
in the ideal chase structure,
the tempo and complexity
of the chase
is an accurate reflection
of the intensity
of the relations between
the characters in "Blackmail."
[ Dramatic music continues ]
"The chase is the ultimate
payoff in many ways,"
Hitchcock said.
"The chase makes up
about 60% of the construction
of all movie plots.
[ Dramatic music fades ]
"When it came to the chase
through the streets,
I broached an idea that
had been maturing for a while."
Michael Powell said,
"Hitch, don't let's do
an ordinary chase
through the streets
like you did in "The Lodger."
"Let's take it
into some bizarre location
that is entertaining in itself.
I had been thinking of my visits
to the British Museum
reading room
to see my grandfather
and the impression
that he had made upon me
by his bent figure at the desk,
dwarfed by the height
of the shelves
and topped by the glass dome
over the whole vast room."
Michael Powell continues,
"Let's have him slip into
the British Museum at night,
get chased through the rooms
full of Egyptian mummies
and Elgin marbles,
climb higher to escape
and be cornered,
and then fall through the
glass dome of the reading room
and break his neck."
Hitch, being a Londoner,
of course,
had never been near
the British Museum reading room,
but he saw the possibilities
of the idea.
And so I think I can make
a modest claim
to being the inventor
of the Hitchcock climax,
unveiled to the world
through the chase
in 'Blackmail.'"
Unfortunately,
Hitchcock was not allowed
to shoot that scene in that way.
Hitchcock used
many trick shots in "Blackmail,"
especially during the sequence
at the British Museum.
"We used the Schfftan process
because it wasn't enough light
in the museum to shoot there,"
Hitchcock told
Francois Truffaut.
For "Blackmail," the producers
knew nothing about
the Schfftan process,
a technique
that consisted of covering
part of the camera's view
with a mirror
and allowed to assemble
an image from multiple parts.
And there was a fear they
might have raised objections.
It was all done without
their knowledge.
In fact, John Maxwell,
the producer of "Blackmail,"
thought that the shooting
of the visual effects
would delay the production
and put the film over budget.
While he was doing
the visual effects,
Hitchcock set up a camera
on the sidelines,
photographing
a letter for an insert
in case someone
from the production office
showed up uninvited.
When Maxwell saw the film,
he was totally surprised.
Framing the story around
a specific place
was a clever way
to engage audiences
with the characters.
In "Saboteur,"
the fact that
the climactic confrontation
between the hero
and the villain took place
on top of the Statue of Liberty,
tied in with the plot,
which revolved around traitors
and, in essence,
the fight for freedom.
In "North by Northwest,"
that very same type
of confrontation
takes place on top
of Mount Rushmore,
also a fitting location
since the movie is
about government secrets.
"Stage Fright"
is about travesty.
The villain is an actor
and plays the role of the victim
quite convincingly.
He is in fact
a psychotic killer.
Therefore, dramatic art plays
center stage in the story.
[ Dramatic music continues ]
Key elements of "Secret Agent"
take place in Switzerland,
so Hitchcock stages a scene
inside a chocolate factory.
The beginning
of "Foreign Correspondent"
is set in Holland,
so Hitchcock playfully
uses windmills
as a plot device.
Other monuments
indelibly identified
with Hitchcock's cinema
include the Royal Albert Hall
for both versions
of "The Man Who Knew Too Much."
The Tower Bridge in "Frenzy,"
and the Golden Gate Bridge
in "Vertigo."
Real cities like Bodega Bay
in "The Birds"
are also as iconic
as the films themselves.
[ Dramatic music ends ]
Hello!
It isn't very often I see you
so early in the day is this.
Call to see Frank?
No.
I want to see
Inspector Wald, please.
In "Blackmail,"
Alice wants to confess.
Well, I suppose you're going to
tell him who did it, miss.
Hitchcock here carefully
designed how she looks.
Yes.
She is dressed
in bright colors.
No longer the black outfit
from the beginning.
[ Solemn music plays ]
Costumes
would very much be a part
of the Hitchcock language.
"Vertigo" being possibly
the extreme
as it was part of the plot.
I better say what
I have to say now.
Ironically,
as Alice is about to confess...
What I wanted to say
is that
[ Telephone ringing ]
I was the one.
One moment, please.
...the phone rings.
In a way, Alice,
Just like the film itself
is saved by sound.
Yes. Hold on.
You deal with this young lady.
I should be busy
for a minute.
Cinema wins.
Yes, sir.
The phone ringing
allows Frank
to take Alice out,
saving her from telling
the truth.
And to let people think
that Tracy,
the blackmailer,
was in fact, the killer.
Aha!
So you found him, miss.
Did she tell you
who did it?
Yes.
You want to look out.
Or you'll be losing your job,
my boy.
[ Laughter ]
it's an ironic twist,
and perhaps
even a life sentence.
Would she really wanted to stay
with this man
under normal circumstances?
But what choice does she have?
Hitchcock declared
that he originally wanted
another ending for "Blackmail."
He said after the chase and
the death of the blackmailer,
the girl would have
been arrested
and the young man would have
had to do the same things to her
that we saw in the beginning.
Handcuffs, working at the
police station, and so on.
Then he would see his
older partner in the men's room,
and the other man,
unaware of what had taken place,
would say, "Are you going out
with your girl tonight?"
And he would have answered,
"No, I'm going straight home."
And the picture
would have ended that way.
But the producers claimed
it was too depressing.
In the play,
it was revealed that the artist
had a heart condition,
died because of it,
and had fallen on the knife.
We've seen the painting
of the jester
on several occasions
throughout the film.
When Alice entered
the artist's studio,
she looked outside the window
and saw a policeman.
She then looked at the painting
and laughed.
The traditional court jester
was hired to ridicule society.
Alice identified
with the painting
when she laughed at
the policeman
because in fact
she was laughing at Frank.
After the murder,
Alice tore up the painting
as she realized
that the accusatory finger
of the jester
was pointing at her all along.
[ Mocking laughter echoes ]
But who is the jester laughing
at now at the end of the film?
At the irony
of Alice's situation,
at love, at authority?
Maybe he's laughing at us
the audience.
[ Mocking laughter continues ]
The irony in the ending
was also a Hitchcock trademark.
The ironic conclusion
of "Murder!"
where what drove
the killer to kill
was to protect a secret
from his paramour.
A murder
on an impulse
to silence the mouth
of a woman
who knew his secret
and was going to reveal it
to the woman
he dared to love.
There is a melodrama for you,
Sir John.
The same secret she already
knew from the beginning.
Other ironic endings
can be found in "Frenzy"
"Mr. Rusk,
you're not wearing your tie."
Mr. Rusk,
you're not wearing your tie.
"To Catch a Thief"
"Oh,
mother will love it up here."
So this is where you live.
Oh, mother will love it
up here.
[ Ominous music plays ]
Or "Strangers on a Train"
"Aren't you Guy Haines?"
[ Whimsical music playing ]
I beg your pardon,
but aren't you
Guy Haines?
A question
that set the plot into motion
at the very beginning
of the film.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
"Blackmail" was publicized
as the first British talkie.
Michael Powell wrote,
"It was a smash hit
and put Hitch on the top
of the heap."
All the atmosphere and suspense
of "The Lodger,"
plus a few clever tricks
with sound,
the film had all the
visual appeal of a silent film,
plus the suspense.
When the film reached Hollywood,
Hitch was deluged with offers,
but he wasn't ready to go yet.
[ Uplifting instrumental
music plays ]
"I think that somebody
once said to me,"
Alfred Hitchcock declared,
"'What's your idea
of happiness?'
And I said, 'A clear horizon.
No clouds, no shadows,
nothing.'"
This remark is quite unexpected,
coming from someone
who left behind such
a legacy of moving images.
But rather,
what Hitch may have meant here
is his idea of happiness
was a blank screen
on which he could create
his own images.
And with "Blackmail,"
and those early films,
Hitch, it seems,
legitimized sound,
but also made a giant step
for motion pictures.
[ Uplifting music continues ]
He went on to have one of the
most amazing cinematic careers,
and it's those early films
that set the tone
and connect all the films Hitch
did subsequently.
[ Uplifting music continues ]
You have the blonde...
the wrong man or woman...
villains...
detectives...
the chase...
the humor...
the food...
spies...
voyeurism...
suspense...
sexuality...
murder.
[ Uplifting music continues ]
The singular
cinematic language
and the MacGuffin,
the thing
that motivates the plot
but is of no importance.
Very few filmmakers can claim
to be a brand name.
Hitchcock was, is,
and always will be a brand.
[ Uplifting music swells
[ Music fades ]
[ Pensive music plays ]
Francois Truffaut said,
"When I direct a movie,
I realized if I'm having
problems with a scene,
I always find a solution
if I think of Hitchcock."
[ Music continues ]
No doubt most filmmakers
are indebted to Hitchcock,
and as audience members,
so are we.
To paraphrase Truffaut,
If you're having problems
with a film you're watching,
you can always find solace
in revisiting a Hitchcock movie.
No doubt it will remind you
how far reaching the art
of cinema can be.
[ Dark luminous music plays ]
[ Dark luminous music plays ]
Elvis Mitchell:
Alfred Hitchcock,
the director once said,
I want to be remembered as a man
who entertained millions
through the technique of film.
Hitchcock, or Hitch,
as his friends and family
called him,
is probably on
the very short list
of the most recognizable
directors of cinema.
He had a specific style
and explored themes repeatedly,
but through different stories
and characters,
and he knew
how to market himself.
Many classic actors
are identifiable through films
they made with Hitchcock,
and even when talking
about composer Bernard Herrmann,
for instance, he is immediately
connected to Hitchcock.
As years go by, however,
there's a tendency
to only focus
on a handful of his films,
but by looking at
his filmography,
one gets an overview
of Film History.
He started during the silent era
and found himself
at the junction
when sound appeared
with a film called "Blackmail."
"Blackmail," 1929,
is significant
in so many ways.
It marks a transition
from one technology to another,
and shows Hitchcock embracing
sound in a compelling
and experimental way.
[ Screams ]
Then there are so many themes
in the film itself
and of the titles surrounding it
that are part
of Hitchcock cinema.
While "Blackmail"
was already Hitchcock's 10th
fully completed
feature film,
it is one that can be seen
not only as one of his best,
but also one that developed
further the director's style
and his singular
cinematic eye...
[ Dish clatters ]
...and ear.
[ Birds chirping ]
"Blackmail,"
and those very early films
mark in many ways,
the birth
of the Hitchcock touch.
[ Projector whirring ]
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
[ Tense music plays ]
"Blackmail" is the story
of a young woman,
Alice White, Anny Ondra,
who murders an artist.
Crewe, Cyril Ritchard,
in self-defense.
She is blackmailed by a man
named Tracy, Donald Calthrop,
who saw them together,
but is protected
and ultimately saved
by her fianc,
Frank Webber,
John Longden,
the detective
in charge of the case.
Alice.
Lock that door.
"Blackmail,"
the play by Charles Bennett,
starred Tallulah Bankhead,
in the lead role of Alice.
It premiered at London's
Globe Theater in 1928
and was directed by
Raymond Massey,
himself an actor.
Bennett said that the road began
with Hitchcock attending
a performance of the play
one night,
and then asking to meet Bennett.
He plainly announced he wanted
to make this into a movie.
Bennett answered,
"Talk to my agent about it."
And so he did.
On "Blackmail,"
Bennett didn't adapt his play.
Alfred Hitchcock gets credit
on the film's adaptation
with Benn Levy
for the dialogue,
for the sound version.
"Blackmail" began
as a silent movie.
And as talking pictures
appeared.
Hitch had to deliver
a sound version of the film.
Sorry, sir. Full up.
We have
more room upstairs.
Go on.
I think I told you
there's more room upstairs.
Sorry, sir. Full up here.
More room up
Hey!
Both the silent
and the sound version
were eventually released.
It's interesting to mention
that most Hitchcock films
were based on existing material.
Novels,
short stories,
and plays.
There are few
original screenplays.
"North by Northwest,"
for instance,
was an original script
by Ernest Lehman,
another screenwriter with whom
Hitch had a strong relationship.
In fact,
Ernest Lehman once said,
"You realize very early on
when you're working with Hitch
that you're writing
for a star.
And that star
is Alfred Hitchcock."
John Michael Hays also wrote
four screenplays for Hitchcock.
And Alma Reville,
Hitchcock's wife,
greatly contributed
to everything Hitch did.
Man: Don't be silly, Alice.
Alice: Let me go!
Let me go!
[ Straining, grunting ]
[ Typewriter clacking ]
Mitchell: The writing
in his films was essential,
and was one of the
most important elements
in the success
of Hitchcock pictures.
[ Typewriter clacking ]
"One of my biggest problems
is writing,
and that is why
I can't make films more often,"
Hitchcock declared.
He also admitted with a wink,
"But of course I need writers.
I am a visual man,
but unfortunately,
I must also have delineation
of character and dialogue.
The plot I can depict,
but I must have characters
and good dialogue."
The first play that Hitch
adapted was "Downhill" in 1927,
followed that same year
by "Easy Virtue,"
based on the great
Noel Coward effort,
and "The Farmer's Wife" in 1928.
Even though it was all dialogue,
Hitchcock did his best to make
that film as visual as possible.
[ Lighthearted music plays ]
And have as few title cards
as possible.
[ Lighthearted music fades ]
This was good training ground
for "Blackmail."
"Blackmail"
was advertised as
"The first British
sound feature length film."
John Maxwell,
the producer of "Blackmail,"
set up a temporary
sound-stage studio
with RCA material imported
from the United States.
During the transition
between silent and sound,
films were advertised
as part sound films.
They had been shot silent,
but only the last reel
had sound.
Well, here we are.
I'm right up there. Top.
It seems that during
the production of "Blackmail,"
there would be a sound version.
In fact,
the silent version was released
after the talkie version
of "Blackmail."
Good evening, Miss White.
How are you?
I'm alright, thanks.
I haven't seen you
for a long time.
Therefore,
while shooting
the silent version
of "Blackmail,"
Hitchcock was thinking sound.
That's right.
Well,
I must push along.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night,
Frank.
Well, dear.
[ Pensive music plays ]
The first part of "Blackmail"
practically remains
a silent film.
No dialogue, pure visuals
showing detectives on the case.
[ Pensive music continues ]
There's an interesting shot of
the bad guy reading a newspaper,
Hitch would reproduce
a near similar shot,
in "Shadow of a Doubt."
The camera moved
to a mirror,
again,
a shot that Hitch reprized
many years later in "Topaz."
The scene in Scotland Yard
with the different stages
of the villain's arrest
is rich with details.
[ Dramatic music plays ]
It's almost like watching
a documentary.
Hitchcock will film
Henry Fonda's arrest
in "The Wrong Man" in 1957,
in a similar
documentary approach
detailing the steps
of the arrest.
The film was also based
on a true story.
"Blackmail"
is full of innovations,
but that was also true
of "The Ring,"
which the director called
"a Hitchcock picture"
had a scene
where our protagonist,
an up-and-coming boxer,
Jack Saunders,
imagines having to leave
his wife behind
whilst he goes on tour.
Look at how Hitch materializes
Jack's fear and suspicion
towards his wife's interest
in another man.
What could happen
if he left them alone?
[ Jazzy music plays ]
"Champagne"
was very much a comedy
with some interesting
visual gags.
A drunk man on a ship.
When the ship is steady,
he is barely on his feet.
When the ship is rocking,
he is steady.
There's also food being served,
where Hitch shows it
as a mess in the kitchen,
and how it eventually reaches
a table looking appetizing.
Among those early titles,
you find the seed of some
of Hitch's later films.
The state fair in "The Ring"
is echoed
in "Stage Fright"
and "Strangers on the Train."
The POV of a man drinking
from a glass in "Champagne"
can also be found in
"Spellbound."
The slapstick comedy
in that same film
is present in another
Hitchcock comedy.
"Mr. & Mrs. Smith."
the historical setting
of "Juno and the Paycock"
is in "Foreign Correspondent,"
"Saboteur" and "Lifeboat,"
for instance.
a costume ball party
in "Rich and Strange,"
is like in "To Catch a Thief."
For $9,000.
Once...
[ Gavel bangs ]
twice...
[ Gavel bangs ]
the third and last time.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
There's an auction scene
in "The Skin Game,"
just like in
"North by Northwest."
Auctioneer: $22.50 once.
$22.50 twice.
Last call.
$1,500.
There are many more examples
underlining that
the Hitchcock sensibility
was already forming,
not only during
those early years,
but in films that are
way different from the ones
that he would become
most known for.
We meet Anny Ondra.
Now, uh, Miss Ondra,
you asked me to let
you hear your voice
on the talking picture.
[ Chuckles ]
But, Hitch,
you mustn't do that.
Why not?
Well,
because I can't speak well.
Do you realize a squad
van will be here any moment?
No. Really. Oh, my gosh.
I'm terribly frightened.
Why? Have you been
a bad woman or something?
Well, not just bad.
But, er...
But you've slept
with men?
Oh, no! [ Laughs ]
You have not? Come here.
Stand in your place.
Otherwise it will
not come out right,
as the girl said
to the soldier.
[ Laughing ]
That's enough.
[ Laughter ]
Anny Ondra,
who plays Alice White,
a prophetic name,
as in "Alice in Wonderland,"
or so she thinks,
but instead falls
into a rabbit hole
and gets involved
with Murder.
In white, but first shown
dressed in black,
although after her ordeal
at the end,
dressed in bright colors,
ready to start over.
[ Gentle music plays ]
Anny Ondra, whose real name
was Anna Ondrkov,
was German and Czech.
She also starred in
"The Manxman," released in 1929,
which Hitchcock directed
a few months before "Blackmail."
"The Manxman" was Hitch's last
silent movie before "Blackmail,"
which included
some interesting shots.
But Ondra's career
in England was killed
when the talkies came in.
She returned to Germany
and appeared in a few films,
and then retired after marrying
prizefighter Max Schmeling.
Michael Powell,
who later became writer,
director, producer
of films such as...
...began his career at
British International Pictures.
"Although I was head
of the stills department,"
Powell wrote
in his autobiography,
"It was agreed
by Hitch and me
that I should personally shoot
all stills on his pictures.
I went down to Elm Street
to see him.
He was shooting
extra sound scenes
between Anny Ondra
and Cyril Ritchard,
her seducer in the film.
Anny had a Czech accent
you could cut with a knife.
So Hitch had hired a bright
young actress,
Joan Barry,
to speak Anny's
cockney lines off camera
while Anny mouthed them
in front of the camera.
It was a mad idea,
but it worked.
Unless you know that fact,
the switch is seamless."
Oh no, I don't think so.
Besides,
I have to go home soon.
I see it.
Michael Powell continues,
"Hitch was listening
to the scene
on a dead set of earphones.
He waved to me
and I waved back,
And then I looked around.
Where was Jack Cox,
the director of photography?
Where was the soundproof camera?
I edged carefully
around the set
to where the camera was
presumably hidden,
and found it
in a sort of sweat box
which contained the camera
and the whole camera crew."
By the way,
Ronald Neame,
the director of
"The Poseidon Adventure,"
among others,
was assistant cameraman
on "Blackmail."
Visuals and camera movements
were always important
to Hitchcock.
"I don't decry dialogue,"
Hitch once said,
"but I feel that technique
is not necessarily cinematic."
He told French filmmaker
Francois Truffaut
for the iconic interview book
"Hitchcock/Truffaut"
that to him,
silent movie-making
was the purest form of cinema.
But that didn't stop Hitch
from experimenting.
In "Murder!," at one point,
Herbert Marshall is shaving,
listening to the radio.
He has a stream
of consciousness monologue,
something quite novel
at the time.
Had to drink a drop of brandy.
For that scene,
Hitch had an orchestra
playing music live,
but off screen.
[ Orchestral music playing ]
I'm sure I was right
when I raised that point,
and I feel more certain now.
How did we know that someone
else didn't drink the brandy?
Perhaps there was someone else.
That's the whole thing.
Whoever drank that brandy
[ Knock on door ]
Alice is one of Hitchcock's
complicated blondes.
She starts off as one
of Hitchcock's
strongest female characters.
I must be getting home.
You are frightened?
I'm certainly not.
Take more than the man
to frighten me.
Yeah. [Chuckles]
That's what I thought.
She is in love
with her boyfriend Frank,
but is bored with him
and wants to explore
other potential,
namely an artist.
She lies to Frank
and hooks up with a guy.
What happens next
is literally a journey
to get her to realize that
Frank is the right man for her.
You find that theme
throughout the Hitchcock oeuvre.
For example, in "Stage Fright,"
Eve, played by Jane Wyman,
falls in love with a detective
while trying to prove that a man
she loves is innocent of murder,
but is in fact a killer.
"Blackmail" also announces
more directly
Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder,"
based on a hit play by
Frederick Knott,
in which Tony Wendice,
Ray Milland, arranges the murder
of his adulterous wife,
Margot, Grace Kelly.
But when the killer strikes
attempting to strangle
his victim,
Margot grabs a pair of scissors
and stabs the man in the back.
A scene reminiscent
of "Blackmail,"
in which Anny Ondra
stabs the man
who is trying to rape her.
[ Gasping ]
You think Margot is lucky
to have escaped murder,
but things turn against her
when her liaison
with Mark Halliday,
Robert Cummings, surfaces.
The husband made it look
like the killer
was blackmailing Margot.
She loses the sympathy
of the jury
and is condemned to death
for murder.
The detective in charge,
John Williams,
is skeptical, however,
and with Mark's help
manages to prove
Margot's innocence.
Like Anny Ondra's own journey
in "Blackmail,"
what is memorable about
Grace Kelly
in "Dial M for Murder"
is her transformation
throughout the film.
We'd better drop in here
first and have a drink.
Mitchell: She goes from
glamorous and sexy
to vulnerable and defeated.
What's the matter with me,
Mark?
I don't seem able to feel
anything.
Hitchcock did
a masterful job making
making a seemingly
unsympathetic character
she is, after all,
cheating on her husband
completely sympathetic.
The audience roots for her
even before we find out
the husband's murderous
intentions.
Many years later,
the consequence of impulse
like Alice's own desire
to hook up with Crewe,
the artist in "Blackmail"
would be deadly for Janet Leigh
in Hitchcock's "Psycho."
There is a blonde
who would change the face
of thrillers and cinema
altogether.
There are many other blondes
in Hitchcock's films,
but truly, the impulsive
one started with "Blackmail."
Alice and Frank
go to Lyon's Corner Hall,
a popular spot in London.
It's a fascinating scene
to watch.
There, something happened
that shows
Hitchcock's brilliance
at setting things up.
Frank,
I've lost one
of my gloves.
I think I left it
at the other table.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
[ Laughter ]
[ Indistinct chatter continues ]
[ Mid-tempo orchestral music
playing ]
Is this it?
Yes, thanks.
Hm, thought so.
There's a hole
in two fingers.
Would you like a pair of
nail scissors for Christmas?
Funny, aren't you?
And later,
she loses her glove again
at the home
of the man she kills.
It's the perfect payoff
when Frank finds the glove
when investigating the murder.
[ Dramatic musical sting ]
He knows it was her.
On one hand,
by keeping the evidence,
he is protecting her.
On the other,
Alice becomes, in a way,
his prisoner forever,
since he is the only one
who knows the truth.
In "Blackmail,"
Hitchcock makes
his cameo appearance
on a subway train sitting
behind John Longden,
who is across
from Anny Ondra.
Hitchcock had appeared in
a silent thriller, "The Lodger,"
in 1926,
three years before "Blackmail."
"It all started with a shortage
of extras in my first thriller,"
Hitchcock once said.
"I was in for a few seconds
as an editor
with my back to the camera.
It really wasn't much,
but I played it to the hilt.
Since then,
I have been trying to get into
every one of my pictures.
It isn't
that I like the business,
but it has an impelling
fascination that I can't resist.
When I do it, the cast,
the grips and the cameramen,
and everyone else gather
to make it as difficult
as possible for me.
But I can't stop now."
Hitchcock said, regarding
his cameo roles,
that he tried to keep
those roles as short as possible
so that he wouldn't
have to suffer the indignity
of being an actor any longer
than necessary.
He also liked
to get this gimmick over with
early in his films,
so that the audience wouldn't
just sit there looking for him.
[ Train whistle blows ]
Hitchcock like trains.
[ Train engine chugging ]
He appeared on a train
in "Shadow of a Doubt."
He's playing cards
with another passenger.
He is coming out of a train
station with Gregory Peck,
in "The Paradine Case,"
and trying to climb
aboard a train holding
holding a cello case in
"Strangers on a Train."
[ Bell clanging ]
Menier: It's proving
astonishingly difficult
to find the right person
for one particular part.
Might I ask you
to stand up for one moment?
The really frightening thing
about villains
is their surface likableness.
Menier: You know Bennett,
he looks it.
He looks it
quite perfectly.
Exactly what
I've been thinking, Sir John.
An Agatha Christie
type character
in Hitchcock's "Suspicion" says
about the villains
in her mystery novels...
I was completely fascinated
by the way your villain
My villain?
My hero you mean.
I always think of
my murderers as my heroes?
That quote seems to parallel
Hitchcock's own approach
to the bad guys
in his films.
I'm afraid you're wasting
your time.
You see, she can
neither here nor speak.
"I always make my villains
charming and polite,"
the director said.
Do you mind?
Hmm?
Hands up.
"It's a mistake to think
that if you put
a villain on screen,
he must sneer nastily,
stroke his black mustache,
or kick a dog in the stomach.
Some of the most famous
murderers in criminology,
men for whom arsenic
was so disgustingly gentle
that they did women in
with a blunt instrument,
had to be charmers to
get acquainted with the females
they eventually murdered."
Will you search
this gentleman?
I take it
you've no objection.
I don't mind.
In "Blackmail,"
Hitch said that the shadow
to suggest a mustache
on the artist's face
was his farewell
to the silent films.
Hitchcock was a master
at making his villains
almost as charming
as his heroes.
They all seem
to possess a sense of humor,
and though their view
of the world was sinister,
they kept smiles on their faces.
I'm so sorry, Sir John.
I'm afraid I understand
so little about playwriting.
I always think
a girl knows instinctively
when she
can trust a man.
Yes, of course she does.
Do you trust me...Alice?
In "Blackmail," there are,
in essence, two villains,
Crewe, the artist,
truly a champagne villain,
And Tracy the blackmailer,
a sleazy type.
This again will become
a bit of a staple for Hitch.
Look at "Dial M"
suave Ray Milland,
the mastermind behind the
attempted killing of his wife
and the creepy henchman
he hires,
played by Anthony Dawson.
Another example
might include Mr. Krug
from "Foreign Correspondent."
Krug has a sketchy history,
as revealed by
the scar on his neck
hidden under
his turtleneck sweater
versus Stephen Fisher,
played by Herbert Marshall,
who never gets his hands dirty.
Marshall had also appeared in
"Murder!"
in a much more likable role.
Also think of silky James Mason
versus his dedicated-to-a-fault
subordinate
played by Martin Landau in
"North by Northwest."
Rotten.
[ Laughing ]
Never mind.
We'll finish this masterpiece
together.
That's the idea.
Art and framing
take a special place
in Hitchcock's body of work.
[ Dark luminous music plays ]
The painting of a court jester
is a very important image
in "Blackmail."
[ Laughing ]
Hitchcock, himself a great
appreciator of art and fashion,
had an eye for paintings
in his work.
Think about a few examples
a painting
of Carlotta Valdes
and the self-portrait
that Midge does
of herself in "Vertigo" later.
The portrait in "Rebecca,"
or the one done by Bruno's mom
in "Strangers on a Train."
The painting of Joan Fontaine's
father in "Suspicion,"
or the painting
in the hallway
that an inspector looks at
enigmatically
in a separate scene.
The bird stuck
on a painting in "The Birds."
John Forsythe is a painter
in "Trouble with Harry,"
and Hitch collaborated
with Salvador Dal
to visualize the dream sequence
in "Spellbound."
In "Blackmail,"
the court jester painting
makes a big statement
until the end of the film.
There.
Oh!
You are awful.
[ Chuckles ]
In the scene where Crewe
asks Alice to change,
Hitchcock uses almost
a split screen device.
The artist playing
the piano on one side
while we're put in
the position of a voyeur,
with Alice undressing
on the other.
Voyeurism
would be a central theme
to "Rear Window," for instance,
where Jimmy Stewart
uses a camera
to look across at his neighbors.
In "Blackmail,"
Alice goes from black,
possibly woman in control,
to white,
pretty much hinting
at a virginal,
untouched look.
Prove unpleasant
for the latter
The camera is telling
two stories.
Anny Ondra is nervous
while Cyril Ritchard
is getting excited.
The soundtrack tells us
the third story through music.
Miss Up-to-Date
The song describes
the situation
in the most literal sense,
"Miss Up-to-Date"
about a wild,
pretty, and naughty
girl meeting an awful fate.
They say you're wild
A naughty child
Miss-up-to-date
For whom if you predict
For you an awful fate
The song sets the stage
for what's about to happen.
But look at the difference
between the silent version
and the sound version
of that same scene.
And that's a song
about you, my dear.
[ Chuckles ]
You haven't said
how you liked it.
It's quite a lesson on
how Hitchcock adapted
to this new
revolutionary technique.
Wait a minute.
Where is this trouble?
This scene, which was probably
quite shocking at the time,
introduces yet another theme
that preoccupied
Hitchcock's characters
Sex.
[ Gentle music plays ]
"My attitude towards sex,"
Hitchcock said,
"is the same as it is
to other aspects of my work
'understatement' all the time.
I'm not a believer
in hanging sex all over women.
It should be discovered
in the story."
This quote applies perfectly
to what is happening here
between Anny Ondra
and Cyril Ritchard.
Hitchcock didn't have
complete nudity in his films
until "Frenzy" in 1972.
However, he shocked
the nation in 1960
when he showed Janet Leigh
in her sexy bra in "Psycho."
And used that image
for the poster of the film.
This is one of the scenes
that Hitchcock had to reshoot
For the sound version
of "Blackmail."
[ Gentle music swells ]
At the Lincoln Center tribute
for Alfred Hitchcock,
Cyril Ritchard recalled
that in that scene,
mics were hidden all
over the set."
[ Up-tempo piano tune playing ]
"And I had to talk into
the first one
and then another
as I walked about,
sometimes having to pause
in mid-sentence..."
That's an idea.
"...while I walked
out of the range
of one microphone
into the second."
Let's see it on you.
"I thought
that Anny and I
were getting a little glazed
from shooting
the scene so many times.
It turned out
that Hitch had substituted
real gin in our glasses."
Oh, it's so strong.
"To give the scene
a bit more 'vitality.'"
[ Up-tempo piano music plays ]
There it is.
[ Up-tempo playing continues ]
[ Discordant final note play ]
We are now reaching
the turning point in our story
as the curtain rises on murder.
Hitchcock had different ways of
killing his victims in movies...
[ Sinister music plays ]
...mainly strangulation
and stabbing,
like in "Blackmail."
[ Sinister music continues ]
Other killings with knives
or sharp objects
are featured
in the following films
In "Murder!," a woman was killed
with a pointy fire poker.
In "The 39 Steps,"
a spy is stabbed in the back.
[ Gasps shakily ]
[ Groans, gasps ]
In "Sabotage,"
Sylvia Sidney kills her husband
with a kitchen knife.
In "Dial M for Murder,"
Grace Kelly kills her assailant
with a pair of scissors.
In "Rear Window,"
a man cuts up his wife
with sharp instruments.
[ Sinister music continues ]
In the second version of
"The Man Who Knew Too Much,"
released in 1956,
a man is stabbed
in the back.
In "North by Northwest,"
a man at the United Nations
is also stabbed,
but in "Torn Curtain,"
a knife fails to kill
an East Berlin security officer.
And of course,
in "Psycho"...
[ Screams ]
...Janet Leigh and Martin Balsam
are both stabbed to death
in two separate scenes.
[ Sinister music continues ]
Don't be silly, Alice.
Like he did with nudity,
Hitchcock was careful
to use violence
in the best possible taste.
Alice: Let me go!
Let me go!
"People ask me constantly,"
Hitchcock declared,
"Why are you so interested
in crime?
The truth is, I'm not.
I'm only interested in
that it affects my profession."
At the same time, the director,
who was born in England
and lived there a good part
of his life,
acknowledged that crime had
always been an English passion.
[ Alice grunting ]
Visually, Hitchcock filmed
murders with style.
"Blackmail"
is no exception,
but it happens behind a curtain.
"Blackmail"
is also self-defense,
as we will see again in
"Dial M for Murder."
[ Dark, gloomy music plays ]
Ondra delivers
a brilliant performance
through attitude
and body language.
Look at how she strikes
the painting laughing at her.
[ Canvas rips ]
She breaks the fourth wall
in the same way
that Norman Bates would
in "Psycho"
as she walks towards us.
[ Dark, gloomy music continues ]
Hitchcock dissolves
from a close up of Ondra's face
to a long shot of the studio.
While the dissolve technique
is typically used to indicate
to the audience a time lapse.
Here there is no disruption
of the temporal continuity.
Look at a freeze frame of
Ondra's face in the dissolve,
and compare it to that of Norman
Bates at the end of psycho.
The effect and resulting
subliminal image you get
are almost similar.
Hitchcock's brilliant visual
storytelling is in full swing
as she is drifting,
following the killing.
[ Melancholy music plays ]
Everything reminds her of it.
In a similar way,
Hitchcock will express
Jimmy Stewart's vertigo
literally.
In "Marnie,"
she's afraid of red,
and we see it.
[ Frantic music plays ]
Here, he gives us
more visual information
that reflects Anny Ondra's
own state of mind.
She's dizzy and confused.
Hitchcock used some
interesting visual associations
to convey Alice's state of mind.
Film historian
Gene D. Phillips points this out
in his book on Alfred Hitchcock
that analyzes imagination.
[ Horns honking ]
The cocktail shaker on the scene
suddenly turns into
a phallic knife,
stabbing at the first syllable
of the word "cocktail,"
leaving no doubt about the link
between the lethal weapon
that Alice employed
to defend her purity,
and the sexual weapon Crewe
had intended to use on Alice.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
The director's understanding
of sound, music,
visuals is masterful,
and is in contrast
by the following segment,
which is pure silent movie.
The dissolve at the door
is another reminder
that Alice has a dream-like
relation to time.
[ Suspenseful music continues ]
Just when we think
that Alice is safe,
the shadow
of the blackmailer appears.
And of course,
this creates suspense.
According to Hitchcock,
the essential element
of suspense
was always to let the audience
know more than the hero.
Let them know that there is a
bomb under the character's seat.
Let them suffer as they see
the characters of the drama
grope for solutions
they already know.
"It was much easier,"
Hitchcock said
regarding the silent era.
"There were no nuances of
dialogue to be concerned with,
and the acting
was much more elemental.
The whole atmosphere
was more relaxed."
For instance,
there's an interesting scene
in "The Farmer's Wife"
that underlines this point.
Unable to find a wife,
the protagonist of the story
stares at an empty chair.
Ghostly images of women
he met appear.
Then...
[ Romantic music plays ]
...the woman he loves
comes and sits,
and he realizes she is the one.
[ Romantic music fades ]
In "Murder!,"
a couple comes to meet Sir John
and to convey the fact
that they're intimidated...
How do you do,
Mr. Markham?
As a man advances
towards him,
Hitchcock had him
on something soft.
Probably a mattress of some kind
rather than a hard floor.
How do you do,
Sir?
Why don't you
sit down?
After the murder,
Hitchcock explains visually
that Alice is now in a trance.
[ "Miss Up-to-Date"
tune plays hauntingly ]
The music on the soundtrack
is the slow version
of the song Cyril Ritchard
was playing on the piano
before his death.
Hitchcock understood perfectly
the importance
of music in film.
He uses the "Miss Up-to-Date"
tune here as a cynical touch.
It's as if he's saying to us,
"See, I told you so."
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
Here is a great use of sound.
Alice is roaming the streets.
She sees a man asleep
in a corner.
His hand reminds her
of the man she killed.
[ Screams ]
Then we cut with a scream
to the landlady,
finding the victim's body.
Hitchcock also used sound
to mark a narrative transition,
as in the case of
"The 39 Steps."
In that film, a landlady finds
a corpse of a woman.
[ Woman screams,
train whistle blares ]
We immediately cut
the loud whistling
of a train leaving the station,
and on board is Richard Hannay,
the man who will
be wrongly accused of the crime.
In "Young and Innocent,"
two women discover
the lifeless body
of a victim washed ashore
as they're about to scream...
[ Seagulls squawking ]
...Hitchcock cuts to the sound
of seagulls above,
an ominous foreshadowing
of "The Birds,"
where Jessica Tandy,
who played Rod Taylor's mother,
goes to visit
a neighboring farmer.
She enters his house,
notices that all the cups
that hang on hooks
in the kitchen have been broken.
She goes towards the bedroom
and finds the poor man dead.
The instinct here would
have been to have her scream,
but Hitchcock knows better.
Instead,
she runs out of the house,
completely unable
to make a sound.
[ Muted scream ]
It's as if the scream
is strangled in her throat.
And it is we in our seats
who want to scream,
because the absence of it
on the soundtrack is so potent.
What do you think?
There's been a murder
last night around the corner.
Another use
of sound in "Blackmail"...
And they tell me the police
are round there now.
...of a bird chirping
allows Hitch to play up
the contrast
between Alice's internal world,
the trauma she suffered,
and the otherwise innocent world
that surrounds her.
[ Bird chirps merrily ]
And all that,
under the watchful eye
of her boyfriend Frank,
a framed photo of him
on her wall.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
Because Hitchcock had started
making movies
in the silent era,
there was a sense that he
understood to a greater degree,
perhaps over directors
who came afterwards,
the potential power
of a soundtrack.
But the pice de rsistance,
the true mark
of Hitchcock genius,
and his understanding of sound
takes place over breakfast.
A good clean, honest
whack over the head
with a brick is one thing.
There's something British
about that.
But knives...
The news
of the crime is everywhere.
Alice is at a table and is
asked to cut a slice of bread
while a neighbor, or maybe
she's just a regular customer,
tells everyone present
about the murder,
but all we hear is each time
the woman
says the word "knife."
...knife.
Man: Alice cut us a bit
of bread, will you?
The rest of her dialogue
is purposely garbled.
[ Muffled speech ]
...knife.
The poor girl responsible
for the killing
is hesitant
in handling the knife.
[ Muffled speech ]
...the knife...
[ Muffled speech ]
...musn't use a knife!
[ Knife clatters ]
And eventually drops it
when the neighbor delivers
one last and loud "knife."
Man: Really you ought to be
more careful.
You might have cut
somebody with that.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
Mitchell: But now,
observe the same scene
in the silent version.
[ Suspenseful music continues ]
[ Suspenseful music swells ]
[ Suspenseful music fades ]
Hitchcock's manipulation
of the word knife
in the talkie version
announces other important sounds
in Hitch's films.
Like in both versions of
"The Man Who Knew Too Much"...
[ Scream echoes ]
...the unforgettable scream.
[ Blood-curdling scream ]
[ Cymbal crashes ]
...meant to prevent
an assassination.
Screams, of course,
are trademark of anything scary.
[ Curtain rattles ]
[ Screaming ]
As is the anticipation
of the scream in "Frenzy,"
as a secretary
returns to her office.
But Hitchcock keeps his camera
outside on the street.
[ Footsteps receding ]
We know she is about to discover
that her boss
has been strangled.
We wait...
and wait until,
to our great relief,
we hear the horrifying scream.
[ Blood-curdling scream ]
But Hitchcock sometimes
used prosaic sounds
to provide suspense,
as in an amazing sequence
in "Torn Curtain,"
when Paul Newman,
aware that he is being followed,
tries to lose his tail
by going into a museum.
Hitchcock in that scene
creates a score using
only footsteps...
[ Footsteps tapping ]
...sounding against the marble
floors of the galleries.
[ Footsteps tapping ]
The pacing of the sound alone
is what drives the action
and suspense.
Later silence is as important
when Newman is forced
to kill Gromek,
Wolfgang Kieling,
an East German security
officer who is onto him.
The murder takes place
in a kitchen
and in order to not alert the
taxi driver waiting outside...
[ Cabinet clatters ]
[ Windows clatter ]
...Newman tries his best
to keep the man from screaming.
He and a woman end up dragging
Gromek on the floor
and shoving his head
inside a gas oven.
[ Both panting ]
[ Gromek groaning ]
It's really the struggle
to keep the man silent
that creates
the suspense.
Well did anyone else
enter the house that night?
Ad lady says not.
Girl says not.
They were alone.
That's right.
All: Any answer to that,
Sir John?
Mitchell: There's also a similar
approach to sound in "Murder!"
See the cadence in that scene.
But no one else
could have done the murder.
'Cause they were alone.
Says they quarreled.
Admits it.
That's right.
All: Any answer to that,
Sir John?
She does not admit it.
She says
she doesn't remember.
A totally abstract approach
that takes full advantage
of what sound offered
to filmmakers like Hitch.
Man:
And not against all of us.
Man #2: Make an exhibition
of yourself.
Man #3: Waste of time.
Woman: Waste of my
quality brandy.
Man:
Hands all over blood.
All: Any answer? Any answer?
Any answer to that,
Sir John?
I hope you don't mind
if I have something to eat,
but I'm rushed today.
[ Plucky music plays ]
Hitchcock's greatest
preoccupation
was food.
"Cinema is not a slice of life.
It's a piece of cake,"
Hitchcock said.
Food plays an important part
in many Hitchcock films.
In "Blackmail,"
Alice and Frank
had their argument
at a restaurant.
Alice killed Crewe with a knife
that was placed next
to a loaf of bread.
The news of the murder takes
place at the breakfast table,
and later the blackmailer will
conduct his business over food.
"A few years ago in
Santa Rosa, California,
I caught a side view of myself
in a store window
and screamed with fright,"
Hitchcock once said about
his rather corpulent figure.
[ Plucky music continues ]
"Since then,
I limit myself
to a three-course dinner
of appetizer,
fish, and meat
with only one bottle
of vintage wine
with each course."
On another occasion,
he said,
"It's been my observation
that a man does not live
by murder alone.
He needs affection, approval,
encouragement,
and occasionally a hearty meal.
[ Plucky music continues ]
Food was as abundant
in his films
as it was on his table.
The Hitchcocks would, in fact,
bring their own cook
to Hollywood.
[ Plucky music continues ]
This fascination with food
made it to the screen.
Hitchcock loved to show
his characters eating
and discussing food,
but his own commentary
on the subject was best.
This applied to both
his culinary predilection
as well as his preference
for visuals revealing seduction,
marriage,
relationship and murder,
you know, appetites.
[ Plucky music continues ]
His gastronomic sensibility
also extended
to the graphic nature
of violence,
as evidenced
in his observation that,
"There will obviously be
a lot of drama
in the steak that is too rare."
Mmm!
Best meal
I've tasted for ages.
[ Utensils clatter ]
[ Man slurping noisily ]
[ Boat creaking ]
[ Slurping continues ]
[ Creaking continues ]
[ Slurping continues ]
In "Rear Window,"
Grace Kelly is bringing food
to Jimmy Stewart.
Ah.
Her way of suggesting
he should marry her.
There is a similar scene
in "Notorious"
where Ingrid Bergman
invites Cary Grant for dinner,
hinting at how wonderful
it is to eat in style...
I've decided we
are going to eat in style.
Marriage must be wonderful
with this sort of thing
going on every day.
...and hinting
at a married life.
But it's also over food
that in "Rear Window,"
Stewart and Thelma Ritter
discuss murder
and the neighbors
across the way.
Since we haven't witnessed
any crime,
the only reaction we get
from the gruesome
speculative details
spilled out by Thelma Ritter...
That's the only place
where we could have washed
away the blood.
...is through watching
Jimmy Stewart lose his appetite.
The most celebrated line
about food
in a Hitchcock film
may be in "To Catch a Thief"
when Grace Kelly innocently,
or perhaps not so,
asked Cary Grant
over a picnic basket...
You want a leg
or a breast?
You make the choice.
A similar conversation is
featured between Eva Marie Saint
and Grant
in "North by Northwest,"
as he sits across from her
in a dining car on a train,
and she declares
that she never discusses love
on an empty stomach.
I never discussed love
on an empty stomach.
You've already eaten.
But you haven't.
When they're kissing later
in the train compartment
their exchange
has to do with
Cary Grant having taste
in food, clothes, and women.
Same taste and women.
"Rope" is completely centered
on a meal served on a chest
in which
a murder victim is hidden.
Placing candlesticks
on the chest,
one of the killers
proudly observes
that they suggest a ceremonial
altar from which the guests,
including the family, friends
and girlfriend of the dead man,
will be eating
our sacrificial feast.
I think they suggest
a ceremonial altar,
which you can heap with the
foods for our sacrificial feast.
Later on, it is mentioned
that Farley Granger's character,
the other killer, is quite good
at "strangling chickens."
A discussion of death and murder
takes place at the table
in "Suspicion,"
"Strangers on a Train,"
and others, including "Frenzy,"
in which the wife
of the detective
in charge of the necktie murders
experiments with
mostly repulsive-looking
nouvelle cuisine
throughout the film,
adding a layer of humor...
It's delicious.
...to the progress
of the investigation.
But I find the...
ingredients are
somewhat mystifying.
The killer Bob Rusk,
played by Barry Foster,
works at a fruit market
and hides one of the bodies
in a potato bag.
He later has to retrieve
a piece of evidence,
his tie pin,
which the victim grabbed
when she was being strangled.
And of course,
food is on the menu in "Psycho."
You never did
eat your lunch, did you?
I better get back
to the office.
These
extended lunch hours
give my boss
excess acid.
From the first scene
where Janet Leigh
and John Gavin
meet to have sex
during her lunch hour,
to her last meal
with Norman Bates,
a simple sandwich
and a glass of milk
during which he observes...
You...You eat like a bird.
You know,
of course.
In "Rebecca,"
Mrs. Danvers terrorizes
the second Mrs. de Winter...
I'd like to know
if you approve of the menu.
...by asking her to fill in
blank spaces on the menu
with suggestions for sauces.
I've left a blank space
for the sauce.
In "The Paradine Case,"
Lord Horfield,
played by Charles Laughton,
observes on one hand
that Ann Todd
is very appetizing.
You look very,
very appetizing.
She replies in fashion...
Charming compliment
from such a gourmet
as yourself,
Lord Horfield.
Part of the plot
of the second version
of "The Man Who Knew Too Much"
unfolds in a restaurant
in Morocco,
with Jimmy Stewart being unable
to eat the local food properly.
Hitchcock declared
he hated eggs.
No surprise, then,
in "To Catch a Thief,"
that Jessie Royce Landis
puts out a cigarette
in an egg dish.
Not literally.
There's also a suggestion
in "The Birds"
that birds are getting
their revenge on mankind
because we've been eating them.
His trailer for "The Birds"
began with Hitchcock
eating chicken.
I've come to feel
very close to the birds,
and I've come to realize
how they feel when...
[ Quizzical music plays ]
I don't think I'll eat just now.
Hardly proper
with all of you here.
Mitchell: Similarly,
he introduced "Frenzy"
by standing in front
of a bag of potatoes.
And the horrors of vegetables.
I've heard of a leg of lamb,
a leg of chicken,
but never a leg of potatoes.
[ Jaunty music plays ]
The examples of food
in Hitchcock's films go on.
the systematic and almost
compulsive inclusion
of something as common
as food in cinema
was, on Hitchcock's part,
another device
to engage his audience
with his plots and characters,
A way to wet our appetite
and keep our attention to alert
and on edge.
A way to keep us wanting more,
coming back,
and asking for seconds.
[ Jaunty music crescendos
and ends ]
Perhaps it's
rather fortunate
that your little secret,
uh, only came into the hands
of a man like me.
Do you know
there are some men
who would make money
out of a thing like that?
What a chance
for blackmail.
Tracy, the blackmailer here
is played by Donald Calthorpe,
who was mainly a stage actor
and whose film appearances
were usually as villains.
Calthorpe worked with Hitchcock
on three other films
"Elstree Calling,"
"Murder!,"
and "Number Seventeen."
Michael Powell recalled
in his autobiography,
"Hitch had already decided
that Donald Calthorpe,
a complex and brilliant actor,
would play the blackmailer.
Calthorpe came of a famous
and gifted theatrical family.
He despised films
but liked money.
Opinions that are often combined
in the superb piece
of screen acting.
I looked everywhere
for that...
other glove last night.
But of course, you detectives
are better trained
at finding these things.
For fun, look at the way
Hitchcock frames the actors
and how there's an ad
that spells out "sex to come."
Clearly a reference
to what led to this situation.
Calthorpe is not the only
blackmailer in Hitchcock films.
The standouts would be
Ray Milland,
who blackmails a man
into killing his wife
in "Dial M for Murder."
There's blackmail in
"I Confess,"
in Strangers on a Train,"
or even in "Rebecca"
with the line...
Blackmail is not much
of a profession.
[ Dark luminous music plays ]
John Longden,
who was a British leading man
in the early '30s
and who played the role
of Frank,
had this to say about
his experience on "Blackmail."
"I don't remember any feeling
that it was
an historical occasion."
Like Cyril Ritchard,
John Longden had
a difficult time adjusting
to the microphones
and the new sound techniques.
He said, "Besides tending
to produce a crick in my neck,
it hardly contributed to the
smooth portrayal of my part."
But this is not the only
Hitchcock film
in which a detective
chooses love over duty.
Why didn't you tell me?
In "Sabotage,"
Sylvia Sidney kills her husband
with a kitchen knife
over dinner.
Only a detective who was in
love with Sylvia Sidney
knows of the crime.
As she is about to confess
to the police...
He's dead.
[ Bomb explodes ]
...a bomb
then destroys her home
along with the evidence
of her crime.
Rather unfortunate,
the way that poor man
round the corner
er, died last night.
During the whole confrontation
with the blackmailer...
Perhaps it's fortunate...
...Alice is nervous,
but Frank defends her.
That a suspicious
looking man
with a criminal record
was seen hanging
around.
What's interesting
in "Blackmail"
is that the story swerves
from the detective's
ethical choice
of apprehending
the culprit...
Don't you try and swing
this thing on me.
That won't get you
anywhere.
...to protecting her instead.
Frank even goes
further by implying
to shift the blame to a person
who did not commit the crime.
Rather unfortunate that
Scotland Yard are at present
looking for that man.
The blackmailer is dodgy
and has a criminal background,
but he did not kill the artist.
In this he is innocent.
But that doesn't stop Frank.
[ Tense, dramatic music plays ]
Hey!
The chase of the villain
and the climax
at the British Museum
is pure Hitchcock.
The villain gets to the top
of the museum.
It's not me you want.
It's him.
Ask him!
Why his own
[ Glass shatters ]
And eventually
falls through the roof
into the galleries below.
The fall in
"Blackmail" is echoed
in "The Man Who Knew Too Much"
at the Royal Albert Hall,
Mount Rushmore
in "North by Northwest,"
The Statue of Liberty
in "Saboteur,"
The mission in "Vertigo,"
Even in "Murder!"
the killer,
realizing
that he has been revealed,
hangs himself during
a circus act.
[ Crowd screaming ]
The chase
is an essential element
in many Hitchcock movies.
Hitchcock developed
his taste for chase scenes,
mainly through books.
"I have derived more
from novelists like John Buchan,
J.B. Priestley,
John Galsworthy,
and Marie Belloc Lowndes
than from movies,"
Hitchcock said.
"I like them
because they use multiple chases
and a lot of psychology.
My chases are the result
of using all of the resources
of modern film technique,
combined with what I got
from these novelists."
[ Train engine chugging ]
For Hitchcock,
in the ideal chase structure,
the tempo and complexity
of the chase
is an accurate reflection
of the intensity
of the relations between
the characters in "Blackmail."
[ Dramatic music continues ]
"The chase is the ultimate
payoff in many ways,"
Hitchcock said.
"The chase makes up
about 60% of the construction
of all movie plots.
[ Dramatic music fades ]
"When it came to the chase
through the streets,
I broached an idea that
had been maturing for a while."
Michael Powell said,
"Hitch, don't let's do
an ordinary chase
through the streets
like you did in "The Lodger."
"Let's take it
into some bizarre location
that is entertaining in itself.
I had been thinking of my visits
to the British Museum
reading room
to see my grandfather
and the impression
that he had made upon me
by his bent figure at the desk,
dwarfed by the height
of the shelves
and topped by the glass dome
over the whole vast room."
Michael Powell continues,
"Let's have him slip into
the British Museum at night,
get chased through the rooms
full of Egyptian mummies
and Elgin marbles,
climb higher to escape
and be cornered,
and then fall through the
glass dome of the reading room
and break his neck."
Hitch, being a Londoner,
of course,
had never been near
the British Museum reading room,
but he saw the possibilities
of the idea.
And so I think I can make
a modest claim
to being the inventor
of the Hitchcock climax,
unveiled to the world
through the chase
in 'Blackmail.'"
Unfortunately,
Hitchcock was not allowed
to shoot that scene in that way.
Hitchcock used
many trick shots in "Blackmail,"
especially during the sequence
at the British Museum.
"We used the Schfftan process
because it wasn't enough light
in the museum to shoot there,"
Hitchcock told
Francois Truffaut.
For "Blackmail," the producers
knew nothing about
the Schfftan process,
a technique
that consisted of covering
part of the camera's view
with a mirror
and allowed to assemble
an image from multiple parts.
And there was a fear they
might have raised objections.
It was all done without
their knowledge.
In fact, John Maxwell,
the producer of "Blackmail,"
thought that the shooting
of the visual effects
would delay the production
and put the film over budget.
While he was doing
the visual effects,
Hitchcock set up a camera
on the sidelines,
photographing
a letter for an insert
in case someone
from the production office
showed up uninvited.
When Maxwell saw the film,
he was totally surprised.
Framing the story around
a specific place
was a clever way
to engage audiences
with the characters.
In "Saboteur,"
the fact that
the climactic confrontation
between the hero
and the villain took place
on top of the Statue of Liberty,
tied in with the plot,
which revolved around traitors
and, in essence,
the fight for freedom.
In "North by Northwest,"
that very same type
of confrontation
takes place on top
of Mount Rushmore,
also a fitting location
since the movie is
about government secrets.
"Stage Fright"
is about travesty.
The villain is an actor
and plays the role of the victim
quite convincingly.
He is in fact
a psychotic killer.
Therefore, dramatic art plays
center stage in the story.
[ Dramatic music continues ]
Key elements of "Secret Agent"
take place in Switzerland,
so Hitchcock stages a scene
inside a chocolate factory.
The beginning
of "Foreign Correspondent"
is set in Holland,
so Hitchcock playfully
uses windmills
as a plot device.
Other monuments
indelibly identified
with Hitchcock's cinema
include the Royal Albert Hall
for both versions
of "The Man Who Knew Too Much."
The Tower Bridge in "Frenzy,"
and the Golden Gate Bridge
in "Vertigo."
Real cities like Bodega Bay
in "The Birds"
are also as iconic
as the films themselves.
[ Dramatic music ends ]
Hello!
It isn't very often I see you
so early in the day is this.
Call to see Frank?
No.
I want to see
Inspector Wald, please.
In "Blackmail,"
Alice wants to confess.
Well, I suppose you're going to
tell him who did it, miss.
Hitchcock here carefully
designed how she looks.
Yes.
She is dressed
in bright colors.
No longer the black outfit
from the beginning.
[ Solemn music plays ]
Costumes
would very much be a part
of the Hitchcock language.
"Vertigo" being possibly
the extreme
as it was part of the plot.
I better say what
I have to say now.
Ironically,
as Alice is about to confess...
What I wanted to say
is that
[ Telephone ringing ]
I was the one.
One moment, please.
...the phone rings.
In a way, Alice,
Just like the film itself
is saved by sound.
Yes. Hold on.
You deal with this young lady.
I should be busy
for a minute.
Cinema wins.
Yes, sir.
The phone ringing
allows Frank
to take Alice out,
saving her from telling
the truth.
And to let people think
that Tracy,
the blackmailer,
was in fact, the killer.
Aha!
So you found him, miss.
Did she tell you
who did it?
Yes.
You want to look out.
Or you'll be losing your job,
my boy.
[ Laughter ]
it's an ironic twist,
and perhaps
even a life sentence.
Would she really wanted to stay
with this man
under normal circumstances?
But what choice does she have?
Hitchcock declared
that he originally wanted
another ending for "Blackmail."
He said after the chase and
the death of the blackmailer,
the girl would have
been arrested
and the young man would have
had to do the same things to her
that we saw in the beginning.
Handcuffs, working at the
police station, and so on.
Then he would see his
older partner in the men's room,
and the other man,
unaware of what had taken place,
would say, "Are you going out
with your girl tonight?"
And he would have answered,
"No, I'm going straight home."
And the picture
would have ended that way.
But the producers claimed
it was too depressing.
In the play,
it was revealed that the artist
had a heart condition,
died because of it,
and had fallen on the knife.
We've seen the painting
of the jester
on several occasions
throughout the film.
When Alice entered
the artist's studio,
she looked outside the window
and saw a policeman.
She then looked at the painting
and laughed.
The traditional court jester
was hired to ridicule society.
Alice identified
with the painting
when she laughed at
the policeman
because in fact
she was laughing at Frank.
After the murder,
Alice tore up the painting
as she realized
that the accusatory finger
of the jester
was pointing at her all along.
[ Mocking laughter echoes ]
But who is the jester laughing
at now at the end of the film?
At the irony
of Alice's situation,
at love, at authority?
Maybe he's laughing at us
the audience.
[ Mocking laughter continues ]
The irony in the ending
was also a Hitchcock trademark.
The ironic conclusion
of "Murder!"
where what drove
the killer to kill
was to protect a secret
from his paramour.
A murder
on an impulse
to silence the mouth
of a woman
who knew his secret
and was going to reveal it
to the woman
he dared to love.
There is a melodrama for you,
Sir John.
The same secret she already
knew from the beginning.
Other ironic endings
can be found in "Frenzy"
"Mr. Rusk,
you're not wearing your tie."
Mr. Rusk,
you're not wearing your tie.
"To Catch a Thief"
"Oh,
mother will love it up here."
So this is where you live.
Oh, mother will love it
up here.
[ Ominous music plays ]
Or "Strangers on a Train"
"Aren't you Guy Haines?"
[ Whimsical music playing ]
I beg your pardon,
but aren't you
Guy Haines?
A question
that set the plot into motion
at the very beginning
of the film.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
"Blackmail" was publicized
as the first British talkie.
Michael Powell wrote,
"It was a smash hit
and put Hitch on the top
of the heap."
All the atmosphere and suspense
of "The Lodger,"
plus a few clever tricks
with sound,
the film had all the
visual appeal of a silent film,
plus the suspense.
When the film reached Hollywood,
Hitch was deluged with offers,
but he wasn't ready to go yet.
[ Uplifting instrumental
music plays ]
"I think that somebody
once said to me,"
Alfred Hitchcock declared,
"'What's your idea
of happiness?'
And I said, 'A clear horizon.
No clouds, no shadows,
nothing.'"
This remark is quite unexpected,
coming from someone
who left behind such
a legacy of moving images.
But rather,
what Hitch may have meant here
is his idea of happiness
was a blank screen
on which he could create
his own images.
And with "Blackmail,"
and those early films,
Hitch, it seems,
legitimized sound,
but also made a giant step
for motion pictures.
[ Uplifting music continues ]
He went on to have one of the
most amazing cinematic careers,
and it's those early films
that set the tone
and connect all the films Hitch
did subsequently.
[ Uplifting music continues ]
You have the blonde...
the wrong man or woman...
villains...
detectives...
the chase...
the humor...
the food...
spies...
voyeurism...
suspense...
sexuality...
murder.
[ Uplifting music continues ]
The singular
cinematic language
and the MacGuffin,
the thing
that motivates the plot
but is of no importance.
Very few filmmakers can claim
to be a brand name.
Hitchcock was, is,
and always will be a brand.
[ Uplifting music swells
[ Music fades ]
[ Pensive music plays ]
Francois Truffaut said,
"When I direct a movie,
I realized if I'm having
problems with a scene,
I always find a solution
if I think of Hitchcock."
[ Music continues ]
No doubt most filmmakers
are indebted to Hitchcock,
and as audience members,
so are we.
To paraphrase Truffaut,
If you're having problems
with a film you're watching,
you can always find solace
in revisiting a Hitchcock movie.
No doubt it will remind you
how far reaching the art
of cinema can be.
[ Dark luminous music plays ]