Sound film "The Clue of the New Pin", a British Lion production using the sound-on-disc British Photophone system. In May, "Black Waters", a British and Dominions Film Corporation promoted as the first UK all-talker, received its initial trade screening; it had been shot completely in Hollywood with a Western Electric sound-on-film system. None of these pictures made much impact. The first successful European dramatic talkie was the all-British "Blackmail". Directed by twenty-nine-year-old Alfred Hitchcock, the movie had its London debut June 21, 1929. Originally shot as a silent, "Blackmail" was restaged to include dialogue sequences, along with a score and sound effects,
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