Early Hitchcock

Sex and Violence

The pivotal scene in Blackmail is the murder of Crewe, the artist. It is a bizarrely orchestrated set piece that begins with semi-sexual flirting and culminates with violence. The whole scene is built around suggestion.

Alice, the aberrant woman, accompanies Crewe, the murdered artist, to Crewe’s apartment where he encourages Alice to change into a costume so he can paint her. Crewe plays piano while Alice changes behind a screen. Crewe’s music evokes his sexual tension in its speed and drama. He makes an advance on Alice which is rejected. He then places Alice’s dress out of reach and returns to the piano playing more frantically. The tension builds throughout the scene to be relieved at its climax not by an act of passion but an act of violence. David Sterritt describes this scene in his book The Films of Alfred Hitchcock; ‘each player is now ‘performing’ for each other… in a pas de deux of nervous sexuality and coy hesitation’.

Alice has willingly accompanied the artist to his apartment. The audience is encouraged to view this as more than simply a defence against rape; Hitchcock is implying complicity in the seduction. When they first enter the apartment Crewe encourages Alice to attempt a portrait; she draws an amateurish face which Crewe completes as a nude. Alice says ‘Ooh, you are awful’ but then gives her consent by signing the picture. Robin Wood, in Hitchcock’s Films Revisited, interprets this as a signal of Alice’s subconscious desire to be naked in Crewe’s apartment. It is also interesting that Alice signs the painting in block capitals, giving the painting a title, ‘ALICE’, rather than a signature perhaps. After the murder she is quick to cross it out, disowning the picture and all it implies.

There is less blatant sexuality in Sabotage. The Detective’s motivation, and subsequent dishonesty, is all due to his desire for the married Sylvia. We are free to speculate as to how much of his motivation to expose Verloc is due to his desire for Sylvia and how much is his police duty, a duty which he dishonours by covering up Sylvia’s murder later. It is implied that Sylvia is married to Verloc for security rather than for love, her true love being saved for Stevie, her little brother. Her desire is left for Ted, the handsome detective. In this case the couple are bought together by violence. In Blackmail it is the release of Alice’s sexuality that leads to an act of violence, in Sabotage the act of violence leads to the release of Sylvia’s sexuality.