TCM’s ‘Becoming Hitchcock — Part 1’ Lineup Showcases Director’s Early Career Tonight

Find out how Alfred Hitchcock the man became Hitchcock the directing legend, as TCM screens the 2024 documentary Becoming Hitchcock — The Legacy of Blackmail, followed by four of the director’s earliest films. Though today we tend to associate Hitchcock with films like 1958’s Vertigo or 1960’s Psycho, he actually began his career 30 (!) years earlier, making silent short films in the 1920s. Tonight’s program will showcase Hitchcock’s early years, tracking the development of a directing style that would appear elegant and effortless in his later work. But make no mistake … it was the product of decades of hard work!
8pm: Becoming Hitchcock — The Legacy of Blackmail (2024)
This documentary, directed by Laurent Bouzereau and narrated by film critic/historian Elvis Mitchell, makes its TCM premiere tonight. Learn all about the birth of the “Hitchcock Touch” and how Blackmail helped Hitchcock develop many of his directing signatures.
9:15pm: Blackmail: Silent (1929)

Everett Collection
One of Hitchcock’s first major films, Blackmail tells the story of a woman who kills a man in self-defense during an attempted rape, and runs from the scene of the crime … only to have her police officer boyfriend get assigned to the case. Voted the best UK film of 1929 by viewers that year, Blackmail contains a number of elements that would go on to be associated with Hitchcock, like a blonde woman in danger, and includes one of the director’s trademark cameos.
11pm: Becoming Hitchcock — The Legacy of Blackmail (2024)
An encore presentation of the documentary.
12:15 am: Blackmail: Sound Version (1929)
As talkies were becoming popular in the late ’20s, Hitchcock’s studio urged him to create versions of the film with and without sound, so that it could play both in theaters that had the new sound technology, and older theaters that were only set up to show silent films. This version is widely viewed as the first British full-length talkie.
2am: Murder! (1930)

Everett Collection
Young actress Diana has been found guilty of the murder of her rival, and is headed to the gallows. But one jury member thinks there’s more to the story, and sets out to trap the real killer, in a plot that involves skill, cunning, and a very high trapeze set.
4am: The Skin Game (1931)
Two wealthy families feud over land and secrets in this tale of Mr. Hornblower, a wealthy gent who steals land from humble farmers just for the fun of it, and the lengths the similarly rich Hillcrist family go to to prevent him from building a factory next to their summer home.

1968 Retrospective
January 2018
This special expanded issue celebrates all things pop culture in 1968.
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