Alfred Hitchcock one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Stewart eventually manages to convince his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) and his girlfriend (Kelly). As with "Lifeboat" and "Rope", the principal characters are depicted in confined or cramped quarters, in this case Stewart's studio apartment. Hitchcock uses close-ups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment". From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the
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