Blackmail at Willesden Library

Brent Libraries are advertising a screening of Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail on 15 March.  This was Britain's first ever talkie, although the opening scene is actually silent.

Back then, films were still being issued in a silent version and a speaking version, as the technology for sound was so new many cinemas did not have it.  Throughout his life Hitchcock maintained that something important was lost from film when sound was introduced.  Nonetheless, the film contains some striking visual images (including a chase at a major landmark, the British Museum below) and one of the most imaginative uses of sound I know of in the well known "Knife" scene.