365 Days. 365 Films.

Hitchcock’s first ‘talkie’, Blackmail is the story of a woman named Alice (Ondra) who is forced to murder a man through self-defence. When her boyfriend, Frank (Longden), who is a Scotland Yard detective, figures out that she is the killer, someone else does as well, before they can cover their tracks and blackmail takes place.

Blackmail is much more like what you would expect from a Hitchcock film and you can see his skills as a director begin to develop through watching this straight after Champage. The way he directs the cast is brilliant, and the actors do, mostly, give terrific performances – especially Ondra who turns from a typical 1920s girl to a haunted and troubled person after inadvertently committing murder.

It is not Hitchcock’s best, but it’s not far off – there is so little wrong with it that it’s not worth mentioning – an interesting and gripping watch.