Blackmail is a dark, expressionist, guilt-obsessed tale that reveals director Alfred Hitchcock's deep-seated fear that the forces of law and order can themselves be corrupt. It tells the story of a young woman who, dissatisfied with her boring policeman suitor, seeks a more exciting lover who can broaden her horizons. But the results are disastrous. The man attempts to rape her and she stabs him to death. Her policeman lover, assigned to the case, prevents her from confessing, and hounds a would-be blackmailer to suicide. Everyone thinks the blackmailer is the killer and the girl goes free, but does she? Made in 1929 on the cusp of film's conversion from a silent to a sound medium, Blackmail appears in a silent and sound version; we will be screening the sound version.