Blackmail (1929)

Yesterday evening marked the start of the Toronto Silent Film Festival’s Hitchcock 9 screening series—an event that will be executed over several weeks. Could you, by chance, be unfamiliar with the Hitchcock 9? You are not alone.

Alfred Hitchcock directed ten silent films at the beginning of his career, nine of which survive. They vary in genre, theme and style, and they are little known today—in part because they are silent, but also because they’ve long been available, on video, in prints of such a quality that Hitchcock could’ve sued for vandalism.

But things are looking up. In 2012, the British Film Institute (BFI) completed restorations of all nine silents, and by all accounts they look gorgeous. I can vouch for only one so far: the opening film of TSFF’s series: Blackmail.

Dial M for Murder (3-D) (1954)

Grace under pressure.

That would have (and probably did) make a clever headline for some reviewer back in 1954. It’s an apt description of Margot Wendice, Grace Kelly’s falsely accused beauty in Dial M for Murder. But it describes Margot’s husband, Tony, even better. Few have Tony’s poise; fewer still could retain that poise in the tense seconds after a master plan had gone awry. But he can, and does, more than once.