Alice (Anny Ondra) and her beau, detective Frank Webber ( John Longden) have a lovers? quarrel at a restaurant, and Alice instead ends up departing with a handsome stranger ( Cyril Ritchard), The stranger, as it turns out, is an artist, and he invites Alice into his studio. After persuading her to put on a costume for him to sketch her, his passion overwhelms him and he attempts to rape her. Alice ends up stabbing him to death with a bread knife. Now, of course who is assigned the case? None other than detective Webber! Of course, things get well let?s say more than just a little complicated when seedy blackmailer gets involved, claiming that he had seen Alice enter the artists quarters.
One of the major issues in the works of Alfred Hitchcock is the disparity between appearance and reality. For example, judgments about what one might consider true and good and the prestige accorded to authorities. One of the clearest examples of this theme, is that the figures of law and order are themselves eminently corruptible. I?m not going to spoil, what detective Webber does, but lets just say, appearances must not be confused with what's really happening.
Blackmail is a film full of dynamic and inventive imagery, The most talked about sequence from this film is probably the breakfast on the morning after the murder. A scene in which, Alice is asked to cut the bread, she picks up the knife while her neighbor babbles on about the murder using the word ? knife? all the time. The neighbors words become softer and softer, but the word knife? stays loud, so when Alice hears knife-the knife jumps out of her hand! And quite typical of Hitchcock, Alice's father replies Ere! You might've cut someone with that!?
One of the major issues in the works of Alfred Hitchcock is the disparity between appearance and reality. For example, judgments about what one might consider true and good and the prestige accorded to authorities. One of the clearest examples of this theme, is that the figures of law and order are themselves eminently corruptible. I?m not going to spoil, what detective Webber does, but lets just say, appearances must not be confused with what's really happening.
Blackmail is a film full of dynamic and inventive imagery, The most talked about sequence from this film is probably the breakfast on the morning after the murder. A scene in which, Alice is asked to cut the bread, she picks up the knife while her neighbor babbles on about the murder using the word ? knife? all the time. The neighbors words become softer and softer, but the word knife? stays loud, so when Alice hears knife-the knife jumps out of her hand! And quite typical of Hitchcock, Alice's father replies Ere! You might've cut someone with that!?