Blackmail (1929) - quotes
Quotations relating to Blackmail (1929)...
Pre-Production
He wouldn't have cast Anny Ondra, because Anny was Czechoslovakian, and she was playing the part of a London girl. She had a strong accent, and there was no such thing as dubbing. I don't think he would have landed himself in that problem had he known he was going to do sound.
Neame discussing his belief that Hitchcock wouldn't have cast Anny Ondra in the role lead role if he'd known that "Blackmail" would eventually become a sound film
source: "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light" - by Patrick McGilligan (pg. 117)
The Production Process
No, it was all process. You see, there was never enough light in the British Museum, so we used what is known as the Schüfftan process. You have a mirror at an angle of 45 degrees and in it you reflect a full picture of the British Museum. I had some pictures taken with half-hour exposures. I had nine photographs taken in various rooms in the museum and we made then into transparencies so that we could back-light them. That is more luminous than a flat photograph. It was like a big lantern slide, about 12 by 14. And then I scraped the silvering away in the mirror only in the portions where I wanted the man to be seen running, and those portions we built on the stage. For example, one room was the Egyptian room, there were glass cases in there. All we built were the door frames from one room to another. We even had a man looking into a case, and he wasn't looking into anything on the stage. I did nine shots like this, but there was barely any set that could be seen on the stage. The front office was worrying about when the picture was going to be finished. So I did it all secretly because the studio heads knew nothing about the Schufftan process. I had another camera set up on the side photographing an insert of a letter, and a look-out stationed at the door. When the big-shot from the front office would walk through, we would just be shooting the insert of the letter. They'd go on through and I'd say, "All right, bring back the Schufftan." I did the whole nine shots that way. The chase on the roof was a miniature. We just built a skeleton ramp for him to run on.
— Alfred Hitchcock (1963)
Hitchcock responding to Peter Bogdanovich's question "Was the chase through the British Museum [in Blackmail] shot there?"
Since I suspected the producers might change their minds, and might eventually want an all-sound picture, I worked it out that way.
Hitchcock describes to François Truffaut how he had planned for the possibility "Blackmail" might become a sound movie
source: "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light" - by Patrick McGilligan (pg. 120)
keywords: Blackmail (1929), François Truffaut, and production
Other Quotes about Blackmail (1929)
[Donald Calthrop] could be compared to a Wurlitzer organ, which can give you everything from tremendous volume to the sofest notes.
Hitchcock expressing his admiration for actor Donald Calthrop
source: "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light" - by Patrick McGilligan (pg. 117)
keywords: Blackmail (1929), Donald Calthrop, and actors
