Public Domain Theater: Blackmail

For our first Public Domain Theater episode of 2024, we decided to watch a classic Alfred Hitchcock film that entered the public domain the old fashioned way—by being really, really old. Yes, this time, there's no special story for how Blackmail lost its copyright. It's just 95 years old, the length of copyright in the United States.

Although I'm not that old, I did see it over two decades ago, when I was a student at USC. We had a professor, Dr. Drew Casper, who especially the Master of Suspense, and even taught a class surveying Hitch's career. Blackmail was the second film we watched because, as we discuss in this episode, it's the second "true Hitchcock."¹

Casper was nuts, but also probably the best film professor I ever had.

Casey

and I agree that it's not Hitchcock's best work, but it's historically significant. Blackmail was the first British talkie, and thus straddled the line between silent and sound eras. In fact, British International Pictures released both a sound and a silent version (both available on Wikipedia now). In addition to the new sound technology, we discuss the gender politics of the 1920s, Hitchcock's self-promotion, and why "Blackmail" is a terrible title.

If you’ve seen it, leave a comment below on what you think of it!

1. It’s his tenth or eleventh movie as a director, depending on which ones you count, but they’re not what we think of as Hitchcock films.