Blackmail

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Blackmail follows a young woman (Anny Ondra’s Alice) as she and her police-officer boyfriend (John Longden’s Frank) are extorted after a crime is committed. Filmmaker Hitchcock, armed with his and Benn W. Levy’s screenplay, does a terrific job of initially luring the viewer into the proceedings, as Blackmail kicks off with a stylish, dialogue-free opening stretch that culminates with an impressively tense sequence involving an arrest – with the picture, from there, progressing into a rather hit-and-miss midsection that often feels padded-out and wildly overlong. It’s clear, then, that Blackmail benefits from an increasingly compelling narrative and smattering of memorable interludes and set-pieces, with the latter undoubtedly reflected most keenly in a terrific climax set within (and outside) the British Museum, and the movie is, in the final analysis, a solid (albeit rough-around-the-edges) early Hitchcock thriller that boasts plenty of agreeable, engaging attributes.

*** out of ****