© 2007 William Ahearn
The Lodger is considered to be the first real Alfred Hitchcock film.
Although he made a few films prior to “The Lodger,” it was in
this film that he displayed several themes that would appear over and over
again in his later work.
“The Lodger” takes place – for the most
part – in a boarding house in London while the city is being terrified
by a Jack the Ripper-type serial killer who preys on young girls. With every
kill, he leaves a note signed The Avenger to take credit for the kill and
to taunt the police. The boarding house is a mom and pop affair and they have
a daughter who has caught the eye of a family friend who happens to be a homicide
detective.
They also have a very strange boarder – The Lodger –
living in their rooms. It is during a flirtation with the daughter and the
detective that the handcuffs make their first appearance in a Hitchcock film,
first as a symbol of marriage and then later as one of loss of freedom. This
device will show up in numerous films spanning half a century. It is also
the first film with a Hitchcock cameo that would also be tediously employed
until the end of his career. It is also the first film that features the innocent
man on the run – and the girl who loves him – and while it uses
some interesting filmmaking to get there (a really nice scene with the handcuffs
and a wrought iron fence), it completely blows off the much better story told
in the book.
“The Lodger” is also the first case of Hitchcock taking
an atmospheric story and yanking an element here or there from it and discarding
the rest. The Lodger, written by Marie Belloc Lowndes – and
a huge bestseller in its time is now long out of print, I found a copy via
the Gutenberg Project – is the story of necessities both ethical and
financial and how each affect whatever actions we do or do not take. The inn
is on the brink of bankruptcy when The Lodger arrives and rents a suite of
rooms and pays in advance. The couple who run the place begin to have suspicions
– although the police detective friend does not – that the lodger
might in fact be the Avenger who is killing all the young women who drink
too much and stay out late. This is a nice atmospheric book and it’s
a nice read and the truth of the suspicions only emerge after the lodger is
long gone.
Somewhere down the line I will do a separate piece on the silent
films of Hitchcock. There is where his reputation as a good filmmaker really
rests.