The Lodger

FilmStruck is featuring some of Alfred Hitchcock's early, British films and I'm stoked, because I haven't seen any of them before. I started with The Lodger, which is not Hitchcock's first feature, but it is the first one he made that is not partially or completely lost.

Made in 1927 and a silent film, The Lodger is about a serial killer on the loose in London. He calls himself "The Avenger" and snuffs the lives of golden-haired women. He always kills them on Tuesday. Blonde women are wearing hats or wigs.

A boarding house near the latest killing is home to a couple and their daughter, Daisy (June Tripp), who is a blonde. She is being courted by a police detective, Malcolm Keen, but she isn't having it. Then a stranger knocks on the door, looking for a room to let. He's creepy, with a scarf wrapped across his face and a weird look in his eye. This is Ivor Novello, who was a huge star in England during the '20s and '30s.

Keen doesn't like Novello, but Daisy and the lodger start to form an affectionate bond. Daisy's parents start to wonder if Novello isn't the Avenger, and despair at him taking her out on a date. Keen finds them sitting under a lamppost in an embrace, and he warns him not to touch his girl.

I'll leave it there, because I didn't know how it would end and even though the film is over 90 years old I don't want to spoil it. What I will say is that if has some of the same themes of future Hitchcock films, notably Shadow of a Doubt, when a kindly uncle visiting might be a murderer. It also has Hitchcock's most prevalent theme, the wronged man. A visceral image late in the film has a man dangling from a fence, the handcuffs on his wrist looped around a spike, with a mob coming after him.

Hitchcock was also influenced by German expressionism, with many distorted shots and shadows. There are some features that seem totally modern, such as the intermittent shots of a burlesque show marquee; "Golden Girls Tonight."

Incidentally, this film featured Hitchcock's first cameo. He is sitting at a desk in a newspaper office, his back to the camera. He took the place of a missing actor and a tradition was born.