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Original illustration: Enormous black Blackmail lettering on cream paper above an easel and a long red shadow.

Image: Monocurator · source · Original Monocurator artwork

Crime

Blackmail

TenseMystery Great first watch · Easy Crime

After killing a man during an assault, a young woman finds guilt, police procedure, and blackmail closing around her.

Year
1929
Director
Alfred Hitchcock
Country
United Kingdom
Length
85 min

What to expect

Alfred Hitchcock’s film survives in distinct silent and sound versions; the sound version named here experiments boldly with subjective hearing and off-screen space. Its famous set pieces also reveal troubling choices about whose fear the thriller values.

How to ease in

This page’s runtime belongs to the sound version. Listen for words that detach from ordinary conversation and become Alice’s private pressure, especially in the breakfast scene.

Heads-up

A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes attempted sexual assault, killing in self-defence, victim-blaming, blackmail, police pursuit, a fatal fall, and dated gender attitudes.
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I hear the repeated word before I think about the knife. The sound version catches how guilt can distort an ordinary room, but I am uneasy when the plot turns Alice’s fear into fuel for other men’s pursuit.

— Momo

Momo thinking about this film

Credits & versions

Version map

Kino Lorber sound-version presentation85 min85 minutes is attached only to this named presentation. No edition, score, territory, cut, frame rate, source element, or restoration detail is inferred. The named edition also contains a 76-minute silent version; 85 minutes applies only to its sound version.Source: Kino Lorber — Blackmail Special EditionRuntime reference · Checked 2026-08-20

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