Alfred Hitchcock Classics - Blackmail (1929) Xvid 1cd - Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood [DDR]

Blackmail is a 1929 British thriller drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anny Ondra, John Longden, and Cyril Ritchard. Based on the play Blackmail by Charles Bennett, the film is about a London woman who kills a man when he tries to rape her.

After starting production as a silent film, British International Pictures decided to convert Blackmail into a sound film during filming. A silent version was released for theaters not equipped for sound (at 6740 feet), with the sound version (7136 feet) released at the same time. The silent version still exists in the British Film Institute collection.

CAST:-
Anny Ondra as Alice White
Sara Allgood as Mrs. White
Charles Paton as Mr. White
John Longden as Detective Frank Webber
Donald Calthrop as Tracy
Cyril Ritchard as Mr. Crewe, an artist
Hannah Jones as the landlady
Harvey Braban as the Chief Inspector (sound version)    

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by John Maxwell
Screenplay by Alfred Hitchcock (adaptation)
Music by 	Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly
Running time 84 minutes

SYNOPSIS:- Blackmail (1929)
Scotland Yard Detective Frank Webber (John Longden) escorts his girlfriend Alice White (Anny Ondra) to a tea house. They have an argument and Frank storms out. While reconsidering his action, he sees Alice leave with Mr. Crewe (Cyril Ritchard), a painter she had earlier agreed to meet.

Crewe persuades a reluctant Alice into coming up to see his artists studio. She admires a painting of a laughing clown, and uses his palette and brushes to paint a cartoonish drawing of a face; he adds a few strokes of a feminine figure, and they both sign the "work". He gives her a dancer's outfit and Crewe sings and plays "Miss Up-to-Date" on the piano.

Crewe steals a kiss, to Alice's disgust, but as she is undressing and preparing to leave, he takes her dress from the changing area. He attempts to rape her, even though the police on the street below do not hear her cries for help. In desperation, Alice grabs a nearby bread knife and kills him. She angrily punches a hole in the painting of the clown, then leaves after attempting to remove any evidence of her presence in the flat, but forgets to take her gloves. She walks the streets of London all night in a daze.

When the body is found, the killing is assumed to be murder. Frank is assigned to the case and finds one of Alice's gloves. He recognizes both the glove and the dead man, but conceals this from his superior. Taking the glove, he goes to speak with Alice at her father's tobacco shop, but she is still too distraught to speak.

But as they hide from her father in a telephone booth, Tracy (Donald Calthrop), the model for the clown, arrives. He had seen Alice go up to Crewe's flat, and gone in and taken one of the gloves. When he sees Frank with the other one, he attempts to blackmail the couple. His first demands are petty ones and they accede. Then Frank learns by phone that Tracy is wanted for questioning: he was seen near the scene and has a criminal record. Frank sends for policemen and tells Tracy he will pay for the murder.

Alice is squeamish about Tracy being prosecuted for what she did, but still does not speak up. The tension mounts. When the police arrive, Tracy's nerve finally breaks and he flees. The chase leads to the British Museum, where he clambers onto the domed roof of the Reading Room, but slips, crashes through a skylight, and falls to his death inside. The police assume he was guilty of murder.

Unaware of this, Alice finally feels compelled to give herself up and goes to New Scotland Yard. She writes a confession letter and goes to see the Chief Inspector. Before she can bring herself to confess, the inspector receives a telephone call and asks Frank to deal with Alice. She finally tells him the truth -- that it was self-defense against an attack she cannot bear to speak of -- and they leave together. As they do, a policeman walks past, carrying the damaged painting of the laughing clown and the canvas where Alice has painted over her name and Crewe's.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:-
Video Codec: XviD ISO MPEG-4
Video Bitrate: 855 kbps
Video Resolution: 640x480
Video Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1
Frames Per Second: 23.976
Audio Codec: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3
Audio Bitrate: 192kb/s CBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams:  2
Audio Languages:English
RunTime 84 mins
Subtitles: NONE
Ripped by: Trinidad [DDR]
Duration: 84 mins