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Hitchcock, BIP, 1929, from Charles Bennett's play. Alice White (Anny Ondra) kills a man who assaults her. Her detective boyfriend covers it. A petty crook saw her leave. BFI calls this Hitchcock's and Britain's first full-length sound film; a silent cut went out for houses that had no speakers. Ondra's Czech accent was judged wrong for a London grocer's daughter, so Joan Barry spoke the lines off camera while Ondra mouthed them. The breakfast table turns the word "knife" into a weapon. The chase ends in the British Museum.
In two programmes
The first British feature that talks, and it still works as a silent. A woman kills a man who assaults her; her detective boyfriend covers it; a crook saw her leave. Joan Barry speaks for Anny Ondra off camera. The word knife at the breakfast table is the sound film learning what a word can do. Then the British Museum.
The gap is the word knife. Shot silent, reshot with sound, and the breakfast table turns one word into the only one in the room. Joan Barry speaks for Anny Ondra off camera. Sound as something a guilty person hears, not something a microphone records.
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