If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

. . . is that there are tons and tons of movies and TV episodes with this title, and the 1939 MGM offering with Edward G. Robinson is NOT the one directed by "Fred Hitchcock" (as NORTH BY NORTHWEST actress Eva Marie Saint referred to "Hitch" during "THE OSCARS 2018"). Ms. Saint was NOT in Hitchcock's 1929 Blackmail, at which time she would have been extremely early in her career. I have a colleague who wrote an exceptionally cogent concise explication of THIS version of BLACKMAIL, from 1939, making full use of his many college degrees. I happened to be on hand to lend my street smarts to the exhausting proof-reading process through which all of my associate's musings are subjected. Trust me, the final product was so moving it probably made more than one angel weep. However, the bots running the show here put whatever High and Mighty criteria under which they operate ahead of the public good, denying you the wonderful insights offered therein. Since they never specify or give any clue or inkling as to what goes into their decision-making process (if any), I have not shared a single one of these cogent observations in this space (no one dares make the same mistake twice). However, our coast-to-coast network of film pundits with be distributing (at our great expense) individual printed copies of the original 1939 BLACKMAIL review at EVERY Major League Baseball park Opening Day, 2018, to all of the fans (that is, to each and every one) who has an interest in this film.

Edward G. Robinson is rather implausibly cast as an oil-field firefighter named John Ingram who is even more implausibly married to beautiful Ruth Hussey. Turns out Eddie G. has a big secret in his past: he's a fugitive from a chain gang. Slimy Gene Lockhart shows up and tries to blackmail him. When that doesn't work, Lockhart cooks up a plan to steal Eddie's business and send him back to the chain gang.Excellent work by Gene Lockhart. I've seen him in lots of movies, usually playing very similar roles in a very similar manner. But here he's playing a hobo shakedown artist -- with an accent, no less! He gives the best performance in the film, though Eddie Robinson is solid, as usual. Ruth Hussey is lovely and plays the courageous wife well. Guinn Williams plays Robinson's annoying friend. Some nice footage of the oil firefighters. The chain gang parts are a little reminiscent of a certain classic Paul Muni film. Diminutive Robinson's escape scene is lots of fun to watch, though. Look at him go! An enjoyable movie that fans of Robinson will enjoy. It's not one of his best but it's good entertainment.

Edward G. Robinson departs from his more notorious bad-guy roles to play the wronged man in BLACKMAIL, a film that is something of a distant relative of what would come to be THE FUGITIVE which would star Harrison Ford more than sixty years later.John Ingram is a man who is trying to support his wife (played by Ruth Hussey right before her second-tier stardom) until his past comes in the form of William Rainey (Gene Lockhart) who not only is aware of Ingram's past in a chain-gang from which he escaped, but was also the man responsible for getting him there in the first place. He comes with a proposal to "clear Ingram's name" but this in turn lands Ingram back in the chain-gang with one motive: escape and revenge.A simple story, one which never tries to go beyond it's apparent B-movie status despite the actors involved in it, BLACKMAIL does not seem like an MGM product but more Warner Bros. The sparse scenes, the unglamorous vibe throughout, the grittiness that pervades throughout add to its credence. Though some plot inconsistencies are present, it's a quick moving story and gets to the point pretty fast without asking too much analysis.

**SPOILERS** Having made a success of himself in the fire-fighting business in Oklahoma putting out oil well fires John Ingram,Edward G. Robinson,had it all. A booming business at the hight of the great depression a beautiful wife and darling nine-year-old son Helen & Hank, Ruth Hussey & Bobs Watson,who thought the world of him and the respect and admiration of the entire community. John he also had something that could destroy everything he achieved and worked for the last nine years, a dark and mysterious past. Being convicted of breaking into the safe of his employer and having the stolen money found under his mattress John Ingram, who's real name is John Harrington,was sent to work on a prison chain-gang for five years. Escaping from prison John made his way to Oklahoma and started a new life and now with his old friend Bill Ramey, Gene Lochart, showing up on the scene that new life,as well as his freedom,is about to end. John giving Bill a job on his oil well to keep him quite about his past doesn't at all seem to work when Bill starts to put the squeeze on him for money and demands $25,000.00 to keep his mouth shut. John not having that much cash agrees to give Bill $5,000.00, his entire life savings, when Bill reveals the truth about the robbery that put John away and caused him to become a fugitive from the law. He was the man who broke into the safe and hid the stolen cash under John's mattress.Having the $5,000.00 bank check sent to Bill's hotel and Bill having his confession sent by mail to the local police department would free John from being hunted by the police. It will also give Bill, a homeless vagabond, the security of living out his last years after he serves out the five year sentence that John was straddled with. As you would expect Bill doubled-crossed his friend and had him put back behind bars and his oil well taken over by Bill who used the blackmail money, that John gave him, to buy him out while he was doing his time with the chain-gang.Determined at first to do his five years and then get back to his wife and child, as well as his fire-fighting business, John realizes that he has nothing to come back to with Bill buying him out and throwing his wife and son out of their home and on the street. Getting letters from Helen about how fine everything is John knows that things are a lot worse then the news he's been getting from her when he has a talk with his lawyer and co-owner of his business Moose McCarthy,Guinn "Big Bill" Williams. "Big Bill" broke the bad news about the raw deal John got both here in the chain-gang and at home due to the sleazy actions of his "friend" Bill Ramey.Breaking out of jail with fellow prisoner Diggs(John Wray), who ends up getting shot and killed, John makes his way back home to Oklahoma. John's determined to settle the score with that lowlife Bill Ramey and get him to confess his sins, or better yet, and crimes that sent him away not once but twice to serve hard time in a southern chain-gang for crimes that he didn't commit. Edward G. Robinson, in a good-guy role for once, is very good as the maligned and wrongly convicted John Ingram. The ending of the movie, even though very contrived and predictable, is very effective and rewarding to both John and his family, as well as the movie audience. John beats a confession out of Bill Ramey by forcing him to face the hell that he faces and faced every time he went to work putting out dangerous oil well fires.