HITCHCOCK BLONDE!

It began long ago, the succession of beautiful blonde actresses who combined feminine refinement and sex appeal in a way that director Alfred Hitchcock could not resist depicting onscreen many times. Over the course of his career, Hitchcock honed this character type to a fine point and his final blonde stars were scrupulously stylized to evoke a very specific image.

Some of the most memorable:

Hitchcock's Silent Version of Blackmail on the Big Screen

The era of talking pictures arrived while Alfred Hitchcock was working on his crime thriller, Blackmail, in 1929. The film had already been shot as a silent feature but during post-production the studio asked the director to convert it to partial sound so it could be marketed as a talking picture. Hitchcock, as was his way, had his own ideas. He began to tinker; scenes were reshot with dialogue, additional scenes with dialogue were added. In the end, Hitchcock had two films - his and Britain's much touted "first full length all talkie film" - and the original silent version. In 1929, most theaters in Britain were not equipped for sound, so it was the silent Blackmail that was for a long time the most widely seen and popular of the two films.