1926
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Ivor Novello- The Lodger
June Trip- Daisy Bunting
This early British foray into the Horror genre was Alfred Hitchcock's third film and his first thriller.
The movie opens with a screaming fair haired girl in closeup; the lights of a sign reflected in the water announce a theatrical production To-Night Golden Curls. The scene shifts back to the girl who lies murdered- the seventh vicitm of the Tuesday killer known as the Avenger.
The story The Lodger subtitled A Story of the London Fog is loosely based upon the Jack the Ripper murders.
While the London is consumed with reports of the Avenger, a stranger arrives at the home of an older couple, the Buntings, and their daughter, Daisy. Cloaked with his face half covered and carrying a black bag the ominous stranger has come to rent a room the couple has advertised.
It isn't long before the lodger's nightly comings and goings and other strange behaviors has raised the suspicion's of his landlord's. However, their daughter, Daisy, a lovely golden haired woman herself, becomes enchanted with the young lodger, much to the irritation of her boyfriend a detective who is working on the the Avenger case.
Hitchcock creates an eerie atmosphere using a variety of camera angles presenting a film with a nod to impressionism. Hitchcock relies on visuals and a limited number of title cards to tell the story. As he will continue to do throughout the rest of his career, he builds tension masterfully.
Early Hitchcock experiments can be seen in this film. For example, Hitchcock developed a glass floor for one original scene where the lodger is pacing back and forth so when the family downstairs looks up at the ceiling it becomes transparent revealing the shoes of the suspect.
Hitchcock gives us a forshadowing of his most famous scene to be revealed in Psycho thirty-four years later when we see Daisy strip down and take a bath while the lodger lurks outside her room.
Hitchcock also makes a cameo appearance toward the end of the film as a member of the mob who is attacking the lodger and Hitchcock's use of the Blonde is obvious.
In 1932, the film would be remade with sound and then again in 1944. If you have seen the 44 film, you haven't seen this one though as the film has a different ending.
Any Hitchcock fan should see The Lodger as it represents the beginning of the master's thriller career.
