Blackmail is one of Hitchcock's early features (it came out in 1929) and was actually the very first British 'talkie.' While that's a cool piece of trivia, it wasn't the best thing for the quality of the film, as Hitchcock actually started filming it as a silent movie and changed course midway through the production at the insistence of the studio. So Blackmail ended up being this strange combination of silent and talkie (it basically made a complete switch 20 minutes into the movie). Predictably, the sound is clunky and the dialogue not quite synchronized (furthering the problem, the lead actress had a thick Czech accent so they had to dub in another actress' voice -- edited to add, after reading about it in the Truffaut book, apparently it wasn't dubbed in (they didn't have the technology) but the other actress stood off camera with a microphone and spoke the dialogue while the lead pantomimed her lines... I'm sure that drove Hitchcock the perfectionist crazy). The plot is also very slow developing. However, with all that said, if you love Hitchcock, it's fun to watch just for the early glimpses of his genius. There was the ancestor of a tracking shot as two characters ascended several flights of stairs, clever use of reflections and shadows, and interesting camera angles. And of course, even early on, Hitchcock was an expert at building suspense.
1 down, about 55 to go (I've actually seen 20 of Hitchcock's movies now and I believe he directed 53 total).
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