The Lodger

In Brief: Fresh from his stint in the German film industry, Alfred Hitchcock gave the British movie world a well-needed shot in the arm with The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) starring the immensely popular Ivor Novello. In so doing, he also gave the world its very first movie that feels like what we think of when we say an “Alfred Hitchcock film.” Heavily influenced by the Germans (something that would never entirely leave the director), this thriller about a mysterious lodger (Novello) — who may or may not be a Jack the Ripper-like killer known as The Avenger (the other residents become more and more convinced he is) — finds Hitchcock laying on the style and the experimentation. Some of it seems a little showy-for-showiness’ sake today, but effects such as shooting through a glass floor to show Novello pacing in his room are still fun and show a pathological obsession with bringing something new to film. Though usually remembered for only a handful of scenes, there’s much here that presages later Hitchcock works — including, though hardly limited to, the master’s own penchant for blondes (tellingly, the preferred victims of The Avenger). See it and see the birth of one of film’s greatest directors. This excerpt was taken from a review by Ken Hanke published on April 22, 2009.