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Alfred Hitchcock, Blackmail and Murder

100 Years of Elstree Studios - Part Two

This week's exploration of 100 Years of Elstree Studios features Alfred Hitchcock's thoughts about his time at the studios in the late 1920s and 30s before moving to Hollywood at the end of the decade. Writing in the late 40s :

"Elstree was a vital factor in all that pioneering. I recall it vividly because I came associated with the studio at its organisation in 1927. My first picture there was the first British International Picture film publicly shown.  It was The Ring, a boxing story.  It marked the first screen appearance of its star Carl Brisson **... 

"I have fond recollections of Blackmail.  That was the first all-talking picture made at the studio.  It began as a silent picture, but I had made preparations so that dialogue could be added.  The completed product proved a great surprise to the late John Maxwell, who was then the head of the company. He had expected the dialogue to be confined to the last reel, as a "special added attraction". We used only incidental sound and music in the first reel , so that audiencies would have that much more of a pleasant surprise when the characters on the screen began talking as the plot unfolded.

"In directing Blackmail, I ran into one of the particular problems which were to beset us during all the early days of the 'talkies' - that of voices.  The heroine of Blackmail was a German-Czech actress named Anny Ondra, and her accent made the use of her voice impossible. We had no process for dubbing then, but we were quick to improvise.  We had an English actress at the edge of the set with an extra microphone. She read the lines as Anny mouthed them before the camera. The young lady who loaned Anny Ondra her first screen voice was Joan Barry.

"Murder, with Herbert Marshall, was another pleasant recollection from those early days."

Sounds like the plot of a certain 1952 musical starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds!

** Carl Brisson lived in 'Ten Trees' in Theobald Street in the 1930s and could be found in The Crown after hours entertaining regulars!