Blackmail is a dark, expressionist, guilt-obsessed tale that reveals 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, like the heroine in The Lodger, is dissatisfied with her boring policeman suitor and 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 really? Made in 1929, on the cusp of film's conversion from a silent to a sound medium, Blackmail appeared in both silent and sound versions; we present the silent.