Hitchcock and The Sound Era

Hitchcock's classic spy-ring tale The 39 Steps (1935) features clever dialogue.   > Buy the DVD

Alfred Hitchcock seems to not only have accepted the advent of talking pictures, he embraced it. As one of his biographers put it: “Sound was Hitchcock's brand new toy.”* When Hitchcock began work on Blackmail in February 1929, he thought he was making a silent picture. Why else would he have chosen Anny Ondra for the lead role in the film? He and Anny were good friends, but her thick Czech accent would obviously be a big problem for a sound film. However, when British International (BIP) suddenly announced that they wanted a sound version of Blackmail, Hitchcock seemed to have anticipated the move. He managed to get by with very little re-shooting, and he used sound in clever ways, treating it as just another element to be edited. He even came up with a clever solution to the Ondra accent problem at a time when there was no such thing as over-dubbing voices. He also saw how sound (screams!) could enhance suspense and lend more realism to his pictures. Because most British cinemas were not yet equipped for sound, Blackmail, the first British talkie**, was also released in a silent version.

While Hitchcock welcomed sound, Anny Ondra was a casualty of the new invention. It ended her film career in Britain. She returned to Germany, divorced her husband, married the famous German boxer Max Schmeling, and later lived in retirement near Hamburg. Another casualty of sound was the studio itself. BIP had problems selling Blackmail outside of Britain. It did not do well in America and without foreign markets, BIP couldn't pay for its expensive sound pictures. Right after the release of Blackmail, BIP announced layoffs and big budget cuts. Hitchcock survived the “August massacre,” but he was put on notice to work quicker and cheaper.

This filmography is divided chronologically into several sections: UK and German silents, UK sound (below), and Hollywood. For more about Alfred Hitchcock, see Part 1 of our Hitchcock section.
 

Alfred Hitchcock Films - UK (Sound, as director)

Blackmail (1929) BIP, 86 min. (sound version)
Screenplay: Alfred Hitchcock (adapted from the play by Charles Bennett). Camera: John J. Cox. Asst Dir: Frank Mills. Cast: Anny Ondra (voice doubled by Joan Barry), Cyril Richard, John Longden, Donald Calthrop. This film was released in both silent and sound versions. Benn W. Levy did the sound dialog for the sound version. Music: Campbell and Connelly. Score: Henry Stafford.
    > Buy the DVD (BLACKMAIL + EASY VIRTUE)

Juno and the Paycock (1929) BIP, 99 min.
(US title: The Shame of Mary Boyle) Screenplay: Alma Reville (from the play by Sean O'Casey). Camera: John J. Cox. Asst Dir: Frank Mills. Cast: Sara Allgood, Edward Chapman, John Laurie,

Murder! (1930) BIP, 108 min.
Screenplay: Alma Reville. Camera: John J. Cox. Asst Dir: Frank Mills. Cast: Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring, Edward Chapman, Phyllis Konstam, Miles Mander. Alfred Hitchcock is seen walking by the scene of the crime. A German version (Mary!), also directed by Hitchcock, was adapted by Herbert Juttke and Georg Klaren, and shot with a German cast.

The Skin Game (1931) BIP, 88 min.
Screenplay: Alma Reville (from the play by John Galsworthy). Camera: John J. Cox. Asst Dir: Frank Mills. Cast: Edmund Gwenn, Helen Haye, C.V. France, Jill Esmond.

Rich and Strange (1931) BIP, 87 min.
(US title: East of Shanghai) Screenplay: Alma Reville and Val Valentine (from a theme by Dale Collins). Camera: John J. Cox, Charles Martin. Asst Dir: Frank Mills. Cast: Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Percy Marmont, Betty Amann

Number 17 (1932) BIP, 64 min.
Screenplay: Alma Reville and Rodney Ackland (from the play by J. Jefferson Farjeon). Camera: John J. Cox, Bryam Langley. Asst Dir: Frank Mills. Cast: Leon M. Lion, Anne Grey, John Stuart, Donald Calthrop, Barry Jones.   > Buy the DVD (NUMBER 17 + THE RING)

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934)
featured Peter Lorre (on right with hat).
PHOTO: Gaumont British Picture Corp.
> BUY the DVD (1934)

Waltzes from Vienna (1934) Gaumont-British, 64 min.
(US title: The Strauss Waltz) Screenplay: Guy Bolton and Alma Reville (from the play Walzerkrieg by Heinz Reicherts, A.M. Wilner, and Ernst Marischka). Camera: Glen MacWilliams. Art Dir: Alfred Junge, Oscar Werndorff. Asst Dir: Richard Beville. Music: Julius Bittner, E.W. Korngold (featuring works by Johann Strauss (Jr. & Sr.). Cast: Jessie Matthews, Edmund Gwenn, Fay Compton, Esmond Knight, Frank Vosper.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Gaumont-British, 75 min.
Screenplay: A.R. Rawlinson, Edwin Greenwood (from a story by Charles Bennett and D.B. Wyndham-Lewis). Camera: Curt Courant. Art Dir: Alfred Junge. Cast: Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre, Frank Vosper, Hugh Wakefield, Nova Pilbeam (as the daughter).   > Buy the DVD (1934) | Buy the DVD (1956)

The 39 Steps (1935) Gaumont-British, 87 min.
Screenplay: Charles Bennett (based on the novel by John Buchan). Camera: Bernard Knowles. Art Dir: Oscar Werndorff. Cast: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Peggy Ashcroft, John Laurie, Helen Haye.   > Buy the DVD

Secret Agent (1936) Gaumont-British, 86 min.
Screenplay: Charles Bennett (from the Campbell Dixon play, based on a novel by Somerset Maugham). Camera: Bernard Knowles. Art Dir: Oscar Werndorff. Cast: John Gielgud, Madeleine Carroll, Peter Lorre, Robert Young, Lilli Palmer.   > Buy the DVD

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Sabotage (1936) Gaumont-British, 76 min.
(US title: The Woman Alone) Screenplay: Charles Bennett (from the novel by Joseph Conrad). Camera: Bernard Knowles. Art Dir: Oscar Werndorff. Cast: Sylvia Sydney, Oscar Homolka, Desmond Tester, John Loder, Joyce Barbour.    > Buy the DVD (SABOTAGE + THE LODGER)

Young and Innocent (1937) Gaumont-British, 87 min.
(US title: The Girl Was Young) Screenplay: Charles Bennett (based on the novel A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey). Camera: Bernard Knowles. Art Dir: Oscar Werndorff. Cast: Nova Pilbeam, Derrick de Marney, Percy Marmont, Edward Rigby, Mary Clare.

The Lady Vanishes (1938) Gainsborough, 97 min.
Screenplay: Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder (based on the novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White). Camera: John J. Cox. Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty, Cecil Parker.   > Buy the DVD

Jamaica Inn (1939) Mayflower Pictures, 98 min.
Screenplay: Sydney Gilliat, Joan Harrison (based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier). Camera: Harry Stradling, Bernard Knowles. Cast: Charles Laughton (also prod.), Maureen O'Hara, Leslie Banks, Robert Newton.   > Buy the DVD

Jamaica Inn was Hitchcock's last British film.
On the next page, his first film made in Hollywood...

N E X T > Hollywood: Hitchcock Films 3 (1940-1949)

POSTERS > Alfred Hitchcock Posters/Photos

B A C K > Hitchcock Films 1: 1922-1929

B A C K > Alfred Hitchcock - Part 1

NOTES
* In Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light by Patrick McGilligan, p. 124

** Most film historians consider Hitchcock's Blackmail to be the first British talkie, although there were others around the same time. Before Hitchcock, director Freddie Young had shot some dialogue scenes for White Cargo on the new BIP sound stage. There are a few others that could stake a claim, but Blackmail was released before any of the others—and unlike Hitchcock's film, they are all long forgotten.

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