Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film, ‘Blackmail’ (1929) was shot in both silent and sound versions, a typical one-foot-in one-foot-out practice at the time. Above is a sound test made, it would seem, to see if the voice of the lead actress Anna Ondra would be suitable for recording. As you can see, the then-30 year old Hitch decides to be part of the test and engages in a bit of ribald humor with his playfully embarrassed star. It’s a lovely view of the young director and his wicked way with humor (not to mention the pleasure he displays in humiliating women). I also like the way he calls cut, waving his hand at the camera crew with a smile, saying ‘that’s enough!’ By the way, when the sound version was shot Ondra’s voice was not used, due to her accent being through to be too thick (which it clearly isn’t). Another actress stood offscreen, saying the lines into an off-stage mic while Ondra mouthed the lines on camera. Such was the primitive nature of the early talkie and the odd solutions they came up with to deal with problems that weren’t even really problems.