Director: ALFRED HITCHCOCK
U.K. 1929 BLACK AND WHITE 35MM 84 MIN (APPROX.)
Hitchcock’s first sound film was hailed at the time for its technical inventiveness, and has been celebrated by a new generation of critics both for its expressionist soundtrack experiments and for its sharp analysis of the sexual politics of its time: Alice White kills a would-be rapist, and is then paralysed by the impossibility of speaking out honestly to family or to police. Hitchcock took this structure directly from the play by Charles Bennett, with whom he would forge a productive partnership five years later; the Irish censor had severe difficulties with the subject matter, but his ban was overturned on appeal. Made at the transitional point between silent and sound cinema, the film was released in two versions, both of which will be screened, the silent one with live musical accompaniment.
The sound version of Blackmail will be shown on its own on October 4th at 1.30 p.m. The silent version will be shown second in a double bill with The Lodger on October 4 at 3.30p.m., with live musical accompaniment, by Neil O’Connor (Somadrome). Tickets for this double bill cost 12.