Dreadful.

I wouldn't say "dreadful" but I do think it's a little overrated. There's some beautiful shots, the murder looks great (I think the clunkiness that brings quite a bit of the film down adds to the scene in this case), and my favourite Hitchcock cameo, but on the whole it's a bit dull. He's done way better films in the early period (The Lodger comes to mind).

I reckon this is a great movie. There are bits I don't like but they are forgivable after watching the whole film. The murder is one of the best ever shot. The expressionist nature of it also really appealing to me.

"You haven't got the feel of this at all, lad. Use all your voices. When I bellow, bellow back."

By 2009 standards, very clunky, indeed. But in the context of 1929, very technologically advanced.

Remember that this was the early days of sound. The dialog was recorded "live" on the set. In order to get good sound quality the Microphone had to be stationary, meaning the actors had a very limited range to move in: they had to stay in range of the single mic on the set, usually hidden in a flower pot or something.

Also the early sound pictures required the cameras be surrounded by sound proofing so the camera clatter wouldn't be picked up by the mic. This usually meant putting the camera (and camera operators) in a sound proof box with a window, meaning the camera was absolutely stationary. This made Hitchcock's earlier and later creative camera movement almost impossible, except when dialog sound quality wasn't an issue.

To counter balance the "clunkiness" of the dialog in his early work, he relied to visual interest, like the girl changing clothes in the artist's room. Also his use of deep focus, double exposure, "shadow play," closeup, quick cuts, and visual tension, added interest to what he undoubtedly understood to be the technical limitations of early sound.

Adding interesting sound effects in post production (bird chirping, car horn, etc.) was another Hitchcock innovation which he continued to use in all his later pictures.

As a work of art, it is clearly not his best work, but given the limitations, it certainly has merit, and holds up well if, as viewers, we can put ourselves in the 1929 context and not judge it by today's standards.

It's all the things you say it is, notwithstanding the overpraise it received from nationalistic British reviewers at the time of its release, "the best talking film yet" and so on. In addition to what you already mentioned, the innovative mixture of sound and silence is worth noting for those interested in the history of cinema; the Hitchcockian motifs will intrigue fans of that director. But otherwise, this is a tough slog. I did rather enjoy the bit at the end, when the policeman jokes about having "lady detectives up at the yard." Guess who gets the last laugh?

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Your comment is dreadful. This is a 1929 movie numbie. Of course it's way behind all the bells and whistles we have now. Look at most other 1929 films and try to appreciate the finer points of this films' delivery. Many techniques used years later. Hell, now. Grow up.