!anaj ,em s’taht

I saw two wonderful Alfred Hitchcock movies yesterday at the Filmmuseum in Vienna - they are currently putting on a review of his complete works. I first saw The Lady Vanishes from 1938 (which I always wanted to see because it’s referenced in When Harry Met Sally, a film I’ve analyzed to death - and it is hilarious), and then Blackmail (1929).

The curious thing about Blackmail is that it was filmed as a silent picture, but with the plan to synchronize it afterwards. As a result, the dialog often seems to be slowed down, or the voice and particularly laughter set in a little bit later than you’d expect from the movement; atmospheric sound and voices do not really seem to correlate, yet this gives the movie a rather interesting, artistic atmosphere. The actors’ faces still echo the expressive spectrum of a silent movie - Anny Ondra in particular is one of loveliest faces to be gazed at in a talking picture ever.

She couldn’t cope with the transition though - she was an Austrian-Hungarian citizen, and her heavy accent disqualified her for the synchronized version. Here is Hitchcock’s first sound check, with Anny’s real voice - not the one to be heard later in the movie. The mentioned “squad van” is a reference to Blackmail.