Alfred Hitchcock wrote in 1982: "The Hitchcock touch had four hands, and two were Alma's." Hitchcock began work on his tenth film, "Blackmail" (1929), when its production company, British International Pictures (BIP), converted its Elstree studios to sound. The film was the first British ""; it followed the first American sound feature film, "The Jazz Singer" (1927). "Blackmail" began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. It also features one of his longest cameo appearances, which shows him being bothered by a small boy
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho Required reading not only for "Psycho"-files, but for anyone interested in the backstage world of movie-creation." Images Journal reviewer Gary Johnson called it "one of the best books ever written about the making of a movie." Gerald Kaufman of "The Sunday Telegraph" found it "joyously entertaining." "Entertainment Weekly," referring to Rebello's revealing how Hitchcock arrived at the sound of the knife stabbing the heroine in the shower, opined "the melon tale alone is worth the price of [the book]." Another top critic wrote that, unlike other books about films and filmmakers, it "reads more like a gripping novel than detached