Blackmail

Hitchcock started shooting this as a silent film. British International Pictures then wanted a sound version while production was under way, and the result was the first British talkie, generally counted as the first successful sound film in Europe. There was a problem: the lead, Anny Ondra, was Czech and her accent was heavy. Hitchcock put the young actress Joan Barry at a microphone off camera, and while Barry spoke the lines Ondra mouthed them in front of the lens. Dubbing did not yet exist as a technique, so it was done live. The film's most famous scene is the heroine, after killing a man, hearing the word knife at the breakfast table. The conversation blurs, one word remains, and it keeps striking. It is among the earliest uses of sound as a narrative instrument. The silent version went out two months after the sound one and made more money, because at that date most cinemas had no sound equipment. Who it is for: viewers interested in early Hitchcock and in cinema's transition to sound. Who it is not for: anyone expecting thriller pacing, since by present standards it moves slowly.