Murder!

A young actress is found beside a murdered colleague, blood on her clothes and no memory of the night — and the jury sends her to hang. Alfred Hitchcock’s third talkie, made just after Blackmail as he was still inventing how sound could work, follows famous actor-juror Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshall), who doubts the verdict and turns detective among a touring theatre troupe. Adapted with his wife, Alma Reville, from the novel Enter Sir John, the film is a drawing-room whodunit with Hitchcock already circling his favorite themes: the wrongfully accused, performance and guilt, and violence backstage. He experiments with interior monologue, live music on set, and a climax in the circus that points toward the showmanship of his later British thrillers. Not yet the Master of The 39 Steps or Notorious, but the young Hitchcock learning to make the talkies thrill.