The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
Country: GB
Technical: bw 92m silent
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ivor Novello, June, Malcolm Keen
Synopsis:
A serial killer stalks the blonde women of London, and as a policeman in charge of the case traces the progress of the murders ever closer to the house of his enamorata, so the latter becomes increasingly enamoured of their new lodger, a sensitive and attractive young man with a medical bag and a penchant for going out at night...
Review:
'To-night Golden Curls', shout the intertitles, and at one point a sign in the background. Hitchcock's third feature is an astonishingly assured exercise in suspense and imaginative camera effects. 'He is the killer', they seem to be telling us, or is it the overwrought neuroses of the characters who make him so (Hitch's favourite 'transference of guilt' theme)? A glass ceiling reveals the protagonist's pacing up and down in his room in a way a silent film cannot; a window projects a cross-like shadow onto his features; but these could equally well point to his disquiet and innocence. In short, there is no sense in which the final turnaround is a cop-out; it is actually rather elegant. As if this were not enough, there is a delightfully erotic chess game in front of a fire that precedes The Thomas Crown Affair by four decades, and some fantastically designed, art-deco title cards, witty and economical. The film was restored by the BFI and reissued in 2012 with a newly commissioned score by Nitin Sawhney that brought a new immediacy to the experience.
Country: GB
Technical: bw 92m silent
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ivor Novello, June, Malcolm Keen
Synopsis:
A serial killer stalks the blonde women of London, and as a policeman in charge of the case traces the progress of the murders ever closer to the house of his enamorata, so the latter becomes increasingly enamoured of their new lodger, a sensitive and attractive young man with a medical bag and a penchant for going out at night...
Review:
'To-night Golden Curls', shout the intertitles, and at one point a sign in the background. Hitchcock's third feature is an astonishingly assured exercise in suspense and imaginative camera effects. 'He is the killer', they seem to be telling us, or is it the overwrought neuroses of the characters who make him so (Hitch's favourite 'transference of guilt' theme)? A glass ceiling reveals the protagonist's pacing up and down in his room in a way a silent film cannot; a window projects a cross-like shadow onto his features; but these could equally well point to his disquiet and innocence. In short, there is no sense in which the final turnaround is a cop-out; it is actually rather elegant. As if this were not enough, there is a delightfully erotic chess game in front of a fire that precedes The Thomas Crown Affair by four decades, and some fantastically designed, art-deco title cards, witty and economical. The film was restored by the BFI and reissued in 2012 with a newly commissioned score by Nitin Sawhney that brought a new immediacy to the experience.
Country: GB
Technical: bw 92m silent
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ivor Novello, June, Malcolm Keen
Synopsis:
A serial killer stalks the blonde women of London, and as a policeman in charge of the case traces the progress of the murders ever closer to the house of his enamorata, so the latter becomes increasingly enamoured of their new lodger, a sensitive and attractive young man with a medical bag and a penchant for going out at night...
Review:
'To-night Golden Curls', shout the intertitles, and at one point a sign in the background. Hitchcock's third feature is an astonishingly assured exercise in suspense and imaginative camera effects. 'He is the killer', they seem to be telling us, or is it the overwrought neuroses of the characters who make him so (Hitch's favourite 'transference of guilt' theme)? A glass ceiling reveals the protagonist's pacing up and down in his room in a way a silent film cannot; a window projects a cross-like shadow onto his features; but these could equally well point to his disquiet and innocence. In short, there is no sense in which the final turnaround is a cop-out; it is actually rather elegant. As if this were not enough, there is a delightfully erotic chess game in front of a fire that precedes The Thomas Crown Affair by four decades, and some fantastically designed, art-deco title cards, witty and economical. The film was restored by the BFI and reissued in 2012 with a newly commissioned score by Nitin Sawhney that brought a new immediacy to the experience.