The Lodger (1927)

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Marie Belloc Lowndes (novel)
Eliot Stannard (scenario)

Release Date:

14 February 1927 (UK)

Genre:

Crime | Thriller

Plot:

A man is suspected of being a serial killer.

Plot Keywords:

Handcuffs | Mob | London | Deathbed Oath | Modeling

Cast

Marie Ault	...	The landlady
Arthur Chesney	...	Her husband
June	...	Daisy - a mannequin
Malcolm Keen	...	Joe - a police detective
Ivor Novello	...	The Lodger

Also Known As:

The Case of Jonathan Drew
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (UK) (long title)

Runtime:

75 min | Spain:67 min (VHS version) | Canada:98 min (Ontario) | USA:83 min | USA:101 min (TCM print)

Country:

UK

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Spain:13 | Spain:T | Germany:12 | UK:PG | USA:Unrated | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Islington, London, England, UK

Company:

Carlyle Blackwell Productions

Trivia:

This is the earliest film directed by Alfred Hitchcock that survives today in its entirety.

Goofs:

Continuity: In one of the heralded shots of the film, Daisy and her parents look at the ceiling to see the chandelier shaking. We then see "through" the ceiling to a shot of the Lodger's feet pacing back and forth. This was a unique way to imply the sound of footsteps in a silent film. However, looking at the layout of the house, the room the family is in is NOT beneath the room in which the Lodger is pacing.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Female eyewitness: Tall he was - and his face all wrapped up.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Silent Britain (2006) (TV)

Primordial

The value in this doesn't come from the story, the acting or the intertitles. There's nothing exotic about the locales or the people; in fact, there seems to have been a deliberate use of a cast that precisely resembles the sort of audience that was expected to attend the movie.

Where the value lies is in the twisting effect that comes from the editing of the imagery that has us convinced of one thing, to the point of siding with the indignant mob within the film, only to have the rubber band harshly snapped at the precise climactic moment. Ideas that filmmakers -still try- to rearrange and perfect.

Along the way, we are treated to some uniquely cinematic ideas; partly the camera angles and the shot to shot edits that twist our perceptions. But note also the superposition of images to denote imagination and memory. What we have here is evidence of Hitchcock's early recognition of the power of the camera to tell the story in it's own unique and new language.