A highpoint in his early career, Hitchcock began Blackmail as a silent film then, rapidly responding to the advent of sound, Hitch turned the film he’d started into Britain’s first notable talkie. From its opening sequence with the police tracking down a wanted criminal to the climactic chase in and atop the British Museum, the film successfully eludes its theatrical origins, having been based on a play by Charles Bennett.

Hitchcock favoured the ideal of a ‘pure’, primarily visual approach to cinematic storytelling to the end of his career – and it’s instructive to discover how richly nuanced this early (silent) version of his first talkie remains. Striking imagery, elastic editing and a vivid evocation of contemporary London life are all to the fore in the brisk tale of a copper’s fiancée’s brief flirtation turning very suddenly and terribly sour. The soundtrack to the silent version is a masterclass – most famously he amplifies a gossip’s harping on the word ‘knife’ to heighten the heroine’s sickening mix of fear, panic and guilt after her ordeal, but a crowded Lyons’ Corner House and the glass dome of an otherwise seemingly hushed British Museum also provide deft aural drama.

Grocer’s daughter Alice White (Anny Ondra) kills a man in self-defence when he tries to sexually assault her. Her policeman boyfriend covers up for her, but she has been spotted leaving the scene by a petty criminal who then tries to blackmail her.

Through its mixture of location filming and roster of believable working-class characters, Hitchcock’s seminal thriller succeeds as a rich evocation of London life. Blackmail is one of the most iconic of all Hitchcock’s London films, featuring scenes on the London Underground (studio), Whitehall (location), the Lyon’s Tea House at Piccadilly Circus (location), and many in the British Museum (location and studio), including an exciting climactic chase sequence inside and on the roof.