"The Lodger" was based on the 1913 novel of the same name by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. It was first made into a silent film in 1927 by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ivor Novello (well known to this day as his name is attached to an ongoing music award, first won by a little-known band called "The Beatles"). Strangely, the movie was remade just five years later as a talkie ... also starring Novello. Hitchcock's version was a success, the talkie was not. And it's been made into a movie another three times (give or take) since.

The copy I saw was impressively awful: the soundtrack was badly written, seemed to have little relation to the film, and did jump-cuts to other parts of the music whenever it felt like it. Those jump-cuts weren't even in sync with the numerous jump-cuts as 5 and 10 second chunks of the film just ... disappeared. The contrast was so blasted out that it was extremely hard to read the teletype news text we were supposed to be able to see, and the movie's most memorable image was almost unrecognizable. I only noticed it going by because I was looking so hard for it:

That is a striking, fantastic image. Imagine it so bleached the cross is almost not present ...

And finally, I'll talk about the movie itself. First, we're shown that London has been subject to a string of murders of fair-haired young women by someone who leaves a calling card that says "The Avenger." Then, a mysterious and thoroughly creepy young man (Novello, as "the lodger") shows up at the house of our heroine Daisy (a pretty fair-haired girl and likely target of the Avenger) and her family, where he takes a room. He even arrives with the lower half of his face covered with a scarf, exactly as a witness described the Avenger. Daisy's cop boyfriend is a bit of a boor, and behaves boorishly when Daisy takes a liking to the lodger. Daisy's parents suspect the lodger after he sneaks out the night of a murder. Etc.

I thought "this is too obvious for Hitchcock, even if it's early Hitchcock." And I suspect he thought so too, and enjoyed playing with expectations: "this is too obvious ... but now you think he's not the one when maybe he really is ..." like that. Novello does creepy really well (without, I might add, being too clichéd about it). The acting is, well, silent movie over-acting, but not nearly as bad as "Metropolis," and it's pleasantly well constructed. Not a great masterwork, but unlike some of Hitchcock's earlier movies (I'm thinking particularly of the deeply disappointing "Rich and Strange," this one is worth seeking out for Hitchcock fans - although I sincerely hope you find a better copy than I did.