Blackmail

An inspector deals with a blackmailer who knows that the lawman's fiancee killed an artist. Alice White, the daughter of a tobacconist, has been dating Frank Webber, a young up and coming detective at Scotland Yard. After successfully ditching Frank one evening on a date, Alice instead meets up with a young male artist who she really wanted to be with that evening. After going up to the artist's studio apartment, he tries to rape her. She ends up stabbing him to death in self defense, after which, she tries to wipe out any evidence of being in his apartment, followed by sneaking out of the apartment and wandering the streets in a shocked daze over what she did. Frank ends up being one of the detectives assigned to the case, who sees evidence known to him to Alice's in the artist's apartment, and recognizing the dead man as the person with whom Alice went off after she ditched him the night before. Frank decides to remove the evidence he knows implicates Alice from his fellow detectives, but confronts Alice with it to see what she says. But before she answers, an unsavory type named Tracy implies that he knows what happened, and blackmails the pair in return for his silence. Eventually, Frank learns that Tracy is a wanted criminal. So Frank comes up with an idea of pinning the murder on him. The question becomes whether such a move will actually work, and if so, whether Alice's conscience will allow an innocent man, however unsavory, be charged with a crime he didn't commit. —Huggo In Director Sir Alfred Hitchcock's first talking movie (which actually started out as a silent movie, but switched to a talkie part way through filming) a young woman, Alice White, finds herself being blackmailed after killing a man in self defense. To complicate matters further, the hard-working policeman investigating the death is her boyfriend Frank Webber. Frank soon learns that Alice is responsible, but sets out to prove her innocent of murder, and stop the blackmailer. —garykmcd After a bitter argument among lovers, the London saleswoman, Alice White, sneaks away from her fiancé and handsome Scotland Yard detective, Frank Webber, to go out on an ill-advised date with the sleazy artist, Mr Crewe. However, as the naive girl is lured into Crewe's studio, his sinister sexual advances will soon arm Alice's hand with a serrated bread knife, and before she knows it, the man lies dead in a pool of blood. As Alice flees the scene of the crime in a numb haze, while the news of the unknown killer is spreading like wildfire all the way up to Frank's ears, an invisible eyewitness will become a ruthless blackmailer. But, what will it take to keep him quiet? —Nick Riganas Feeling neglected by her police detective boyfriend, Alice accepts an artist's invitation to go to his studio. His intentions turn aggressive, however, and Alice kills him in self-defence and flees the scene. Luckily her boyfriend is the investigating officer who, after finding a clue implicating her, hides the evidence. Just when it appears that she is in the clear a shadowy man appears with evidence that will convict her, unless they are willing to give him what he wants. —grantss