Laura Lai/Review
Film’s Title: The Lodger
Lead Actors: Daisy (June), the lodger (Ivor Novello), Joe (Malcolm Keen), and the landlady (Marie Ault), the landlady’s husband (Arthur Chesney)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Based on the novel The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes (1911)
The Lodger
is a silent movie thriller that starts with a murder and keeps the audience in
suspense with great turns and twists as created by the master of suspense, A.
Hitchcock.
A serial killer was at large even after having committed the seventh victim – all of them blonde women, which, from a scientific viewpoint, was the work of a psychopath that developed a fixation. The murderer was ‘signing’ his murderous acts with the name of ‘The Avenger’ and an upwards triangle. According to police calculations, the following victim should be from a certain area of lodging houses. In one of these houses, lived a young blonde girl named Daisy (June). To this house, a tall man, with his face half-covered – as ‘The Avenger’ was described by a witness after his last victim – asked for accommodation (Ivor Novello). The lodger was carrying a leather bag, he was wealthy enough to pay the rent in advance, and he was having a map on which it was marked all the places where the murderer made his victims – altogether a triangle-perimeter on the map of London. Following a series of coincidental events, the lodger almost got annihilated by the masses – wrongly annihilated by the masses constantly reading in the Evening Standard about The Avenger’s victims.
It is in this scene that Alfred Hitchcock is caught on camera, as an actor – a lovely and original idea. Nowadays, I think that Quentin Tarantino sometimes does that, too: being both the director and the actor. But there may be others I am not aware of just as a cinema movie consumer.
I remember that during my Drama Writing course in 2019, we got to the topic of book adaptations for screen and/or for the stage. Our drama
writing tutor at Oxford asked us about a book that we would adapt, for which
medium, and the way we would do that. I answered that I would adapt Romeo and
Juliette by W. Shakespeare for several reasons: remembering Shakespeare, for
the fun of updating the topic and pacing it in the present, for the challenge
of the medium change adaptation (text written for the stage but adapted for the screen),
and for the even greater challenge of transforming a tragedy into a comedy. Just
that I would call it Roman and Julie, and the way I described how I
envisioned my adaptation was just an allusion to Shakespeare's play. The
tutor found my creative idea lovely and asked me if I saw the movie Romeo and Juliette directed by
Baz Luhrman. I was just about to reply ‘I’ve seen the movie Romeo and Juliette with Leonardo di Caprio’, but I checked on the Internet
and I learned that we were referring to the same movie - just to see the difference between the way a professional asks a question about a movie ('by Baz Luhrman') and the way a cinema consumer would answer ('with di Caprio').
In
the movie The Lodger there are particularly three scenes on which I would
like to pause, because they made quite an impression on me, from either an
artistic or a technical point of view – both stressing Hitchcock’s film
genius.
First, from an artistic point of view, to have a lamp as a leitmotif of a movie whose subtitle is A story of London Fog is an absolutely brilliant idea! Brilliant! Second, from a technical point of view, and related to the idea of searching for a serial killer in a London fog, I want to point to the scene when the camera shoots the back of a police car with two windows through which one could see the driver and the agent sitting next to the driver, both dressed in black. The way the car swings creates the artistic impression of two eyes looking left and right. And that I also found absolutely brilliant as an idea. The third scene I would like to mention is one of the mobs wanting to annihilate the lodger, who was stuck in a fence because of his handcuffs. The moment he is brought down from the fence, with Daisy crying over his wounded and bleeding body was, from my point of view, an allusion to the biblical story of Jesus' crucifixion.
After having read the book The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes I
am persuaded by the biblical allusion to this scene because in the book the
lodger is described as a gentleman who the moment he arrived in this house
seeking accommodation, he also asked for a Bible. He was also quoting
from the Bible. I find it fabulous the way Hitchcock transposed on screen this
information from the book. However, I think that the use of the Bible in the book and referring to the lodger was intentionally used to raise questions about the true character of this lodger - to be or not to be the serial killer. The reason why I believe so is that there is an old saying that says that the devil can also quote very well from the Bible. Therefore, the fact that this lodger asked for a Bible does not say anything about his innocence because he could be that evil-spirited serial killer having a Bible and even knowing quotes from it.
This
book that inspired Hitchcock for the screen is structured into twenty-seven chapters.
The landlady and her husband are, actually, the Buntings and Daisy is Mr.
Bunting’s daughter from a first marriage. Daisy is described as having ‘always
lived a simple, quiet life in the little country town…’ while in Hitchcock’s
movie, she’s a mannequin having periodically a show – an idea that is more
attractive for cinema. However, in adapting the book for the screen, Hitchcock kept
many elements from the book, including the description of the lodger (Sleuth,
in the book) who was ‘dark, sensitive, hatchet-shaped face’ wearing a black
leather bag that was kept closed in a ‘chiffonnier’.
This book from 1911 uses the French word ‘chiffonnier’ that was used in English at the beginning of the XXth century, and that is no anymore mentioned in the English dictionary. In French, it means a piece of furniture that is relatively high, not too large, and that, usually, has drawers. It is in this kind of piece of furniture that the lodger was having his bag closed both in the book and in the movie. Furthermore, Hitchcock used the idea of a serial killer, ‘the avenger’ signature with the triangle sign as in the book, and the Evening Standard. But contrary to the book, he built a love story between the lodger and Daisy – a love story that only Hitchcock could envision taking shape during a chess game. A very original idea within this movie context! Maybe the most original and the most intriguing was the back story Hitchcock created for the lodger’s character: ‘the avenger’ as being ‘the revenger.’ I will let you discover why I believe so.
Enjoy the movie!
P.S.: See you in the next review of Hitchcock’s movies!
#filmreview, #oldfilmreview, #bookreview, #writing, #Hitchcock, #amblogging
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