"Tall he was - and his face all wrapped up." This is the story of The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. This 1927 British silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, adapted by Eliot Stannard, based on the novel The Lodger and the play Who Is He? co-written by Marie Belloc Lowndes. When a landlady and her husband take in a new lodger, they're overjoyed: He's quiet, humble and pays a month's rent in advance. But his mysterious and suspicious behaviour soon has them wondering if he's the killer terrorising local blond girls. Their daughter, Daisy, a cocky model, is far less concerned, her attraction obvious. Her police-detective boyfriend, in a pique of jealousy, seeks to uncover the lodger's true identity.
Published in 1913, the novel was the first book to offer a solution to the Jack The Ripper killings. The book is supposedly based on an anecdote told to the painter Walter Sickert by the landlady when renting a room. She said that the previous tenant had been Jack the Ripper. The book was quite popular in its day, with a comic stage adaptation, co-written by Lowndes and Horace Annesley Vachell, produced. In 1915, Hitchcock saw the play. In 1924, during his tenure at Gainsborough Pictures, Hitchcock was sent to Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, Germany for the production of F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924). There, he was exposed to German Expressionism and was keen to incorporate this into his films. Upon his return, he made The Pleasure Garden (1925) and The Mountain Eagle (1926) back-to-back, both were critical and commercial failures. The Lodger was Hitchcock's third feature film. The film marked the first of the celebrated Hitchcock cameo appearances. Hitchcock appears as "Extra in Newspaper Office". Hitchcock's cameo as an extra came by accident when he didn't have enough people for extras in a scene, he decided to help by appearing in the scene. As a result, he decided to turn his appearance into one of his trademarks, with him performing silent walk-on bits in most of his later movies appearing as uncredited extras. The film was released on 14 February 1927 in London and on 10 June 1928 in New York City. It became Hitchcock's first critical and commercial hit.
Originally, like the novel, the film was intended to end with ambiguity as to whether or not the lodger was innocent. Reportedly, Hitchcock wanted to film it that way, however, when Ivor Novello was cast in the role, the studio demanded alterations to the script. As the studio felt that audiences wouldn't like a popular star like Ivor Novello to be shown as a possible killer. Hitchcock recalled: "They wouldn't let Novello even be considered as a villain. The publicity angle carried the day, and we had to change the script to show that without a doubt he was innocent." Ultimately, Hitchcock followed these instructions, but avoided showing the true villain onscreen. Upon seeing Hitchcock's finished film, producer Michael Balcon was horrified and furious by Hitchcock's progressive style of filming, not to mention the implications of homosexuality and incest. Ultimately, Balcon nearly shelved it (and Hitchcock's career). After considerable bickering, a compromise was reached and film critic Ivor Montagu was hired to salvage the film. Hitchcock was initially resentful of the intrusion, but Montagu recognised the director's technical skill and artistry and made only minor suggestions, mostly concerning the reduction of the title cards from four hundred to eighty, as well as reshooting a few minor scenes.
The film, described by Hitchcock scholar Donald Spoto, is "the first time Hitchcock has revealed his psychological attraction to the association between sex and murder, between ecstasy and death." It would pave the way for his later work. The film introduced themes that would run through much of Hitchcock's later work: the innocent man on the run for something he didn't do. Hitchcock had clearly been watching contemporary films by Murnau and Lang, whose influence can be seen in the ominous camera angles and claustrophobic lighting. During his famous interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock told him that, though he had made two movies prior, but he considered The Lodger his first true suspense film and the first true "Hitchcock film". Beginning with The Lodger, Hitchcock helped shape the modern-day thriller genre in film.
The film Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, June Tripp, Malcolm Keen, and Ivor Novello. Stellar performances by the talented cast, given the fact that they were silent film stars. Kudos goes to Tripp and Novello especially. Tripp's portrayal of Daisy, like Madeleine Carroll in The 39 Steps (1935), gave birth to the archetypal Hitchcock blonde. A similar sentiment can be said for Novello's portrayal of the titular character, which spawned the archetypal Hitchcock innocent leading man who's on the run for a crime he did not commit.
Simon says The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog receives:
The Lodger marked Hitchcock's first critical and commercial hit, and it remains famous for its innovations. But it's now more stimulating for its experiment with stylistic visuals and future Hitchcockian themes. Like most of his British films, the film is a sign of things to come rather than Hitchcock at his height, but it shouldn't be missed. It's an early British production by Hitchcock that is truly entertaining. The themes and visual flourishes that we associate with the mature director are already at play. A Teutonic experiment in visual storytelling, Hitchcock's first hit film offers scene upon scene of ingenious synergy of camera and meaning. It's a more than adequate though its primitive murder mystery story that's enhanced by a series of marvelous technical innovations for its time. The film is a better combination of German Expressionist and British sensibilities than any other film of its type we have seen. Hitchcock's first hit is a little clunky, slight and creaky for contemporary audiences, but still manages to truly perturb, play well, enjoyable and entertaining, as well as being a suitable precursor to the master director's later work. Hitchcock's first hit is today largely a historical curiosity, but still worth seeing.
Simon says The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog receives:
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