This film is part of Rentals

Blackmail
Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film sees a young woman blackmailed for a murder she was forced to commit.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Overview
A grocer's daughter kills a man who tries to sexually assault her. Her boyfriend, a policeman, attempts to cover up the murder. However, a small-time crook witnessed the act and threatens to blackmail the couple. Only Hitchcock's second crime film, Blackmail would sow the seeds for many of his masterpieces to come, including Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960).
Blackmail holds additional historical importance for being Britain's, as well as Hitchcock's, first feature-length sound film. Originally intended as a silent film, its producers asked Hitchcock to experiment with adding a sound finale (as adopted in The Jazz Singer [1927]). But the director surreptitiously shot the entire film in sound, re-shooting his dialogue scenes and famously enlisting Joan Barry to speak Anny Ondra's lines as she mouthed them, to mask Ondra's thick Czech accent. Blackmail was adapted by Charles Bennett from one of his own plays, in the first of a string of collaborations with Hitchcock during his early sound period.
Related

The Wicker Man The Wicker Man
Horror 1973 88 mins Director: Robin Hardy
Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward star in the folk horror classic about a policemen investigating an island given over to paganism.

The Blue Lamp The Blue Lamp
Police drama 1950 85 mins Director: Basil Dearden
Dirk Bogarde stars as a loose-cannon crook with Dixon of Dock Green (Jack Warner) on his tail, in the classic Ealing policier.

Loot Loot
Comedy 1971 102 mins Director: Silvio Narizzano
Silvio Narizzano adapts Joe Orton’s extraordinarily funny satire on police corruption and the conventions of detective fiction.

Hell Is a City Hell Is a City
Police drama 1960 96 mins Director: Val Guest
Punchy crime thriller with a realist streak as Stanley Baker pursues a fugitive through the streets of Manchester.

Wolcott Part 3 Wolcott Part 3
Police drama 1981 52 mins Director: Colin Bucksey
Continuing the gritty and ground-breaking drama featuring Britain’s first black TV detective.

Sapphire Sapphire
Police drama 1959 92 mins Director: Basil Dearden
A young student with a secret is brutally murdered in this British Academy Award winning thriller about race, sex and jealousy.

Orlando Orlando
Fantasy 1993 93 mins Director: Sally Potter
Tilda Swinton stars in Sally Potter's dazzling interpretation of Virginia Woolf's novel.

An American in Paris An American in Paris
Musical 1951 113 mins Director: Vincente Minnelli
Gene Kelly stars as a former GI turned bohemian artist, torn between two women in this exhilarating ride through the Gershwin songbook.

Casablanca Casablanca
Romance 1942 103 mins Director: Michael Curtiz
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman star in the eternal story of love, loss and redemption; the ultimate testament to the brilliance of Golden Age Hollywood.

The Queen of Spades The Queen of Spades
Fantasy 1949 95 mins Director: Thorold Dickinson
Thorold Dickinson's most dazzling success, based on Pushkin’s 1834 tale of black magic and gambling.

Downhill Downhill
Drama 1927 105 mins Silent Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock’s fifth film features an early variation on his fabled ‘wrong man’plot, as Ivor Novello stands accused of getting a girl pregnant.

Slow Slow
Romance 2023 108 mins Director: Marija Kavtaradze
Sundance award-winning love story about the evolving connection between a dancer and sign-language interpreter, when the man reveals he’s asexual.

To a Land Unknown To a Land Unknown
Thriller 2025 106 mins Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel’s feature debut combines a buddy drama and tense thriller to powerful and topical effect.

Chicken Town Chicken Town
Comedy 2025 90 mins Director: Richard Bracewell
Two old schoolfriends join forces with an elderly neighbour to fence a shed full of weed, in this sprightly, easy-going British comedy.

Bogancloch Bogancloch
Documentary 2025 86 mins Director: Ben Rivers
The life and environment of a solitary man is gently observed in Ben Rivers' intimate, experimental documentary.

When Autumn Falls When Autumn Falls
Drama 2024 104 mins Director: François Ozon
The ever-inventive François Ozon offers a bittersweet tale with a twist or two, about age, youth, the past and the art of breaking the rules.

Gholam Gholam
Drama 2017 95 mins Director: Mitra Tabrizian
An Iranian exile in London, who is haunted by his past, gets involved in the conflicts of a total stranger and has to see it through until the end, in this mesmerising slow-burn thriller.