Becoming Hitchcock: The Legacy of Blackmail

Becoming Hitchcock... the Making of Blackmail is a 2024 documentary I just saw on TCM.

It takes a look at the first Hitchcock talkie, Blackmail, also released as a silent film, and how he framed moments differently in each.

The documentary also traces back those Hitchcock touches and how he applied them to his various films - his use of landmarks, types of murders, food, artwork, screams, etc., all fascinating, some less obvious than others until you see them brought together in a documentary.

At one point, the narrator directed the viewer to a partial sign in one scene that read sex to come - we don't know what the rest of it said, but it was deliberate on Hitch's part.

I'd like to point out some other subtle sexual references- the obvious train going into the tunnel at the end of North by Northwest is one. However, the best is the magazine Grace Kelly is reading at the end of Rear Window: Himalayas.

In Blackmail, there is a scene where Anny Ondra is undressing as Cyril Ritchard plays the piano and sings about a date night. Very reminiscent to me of Kim Novak, now transformed back in James Stewart's vision, emerges from the bathroom. Hitch described that as a man waiting to make love to a woman.

These moments, so many captured in this documentary, help us appreciate the subtleties in Hitchcock's work, sometimes missed as we watch the attractive villain, the normal man in unusual circumstances, the bomb we but the characters don't know is about to go off.

Highly recommended.