The lodger

pp. 66-78

in: Jill Forbes, Sarah Street, European cinema, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

The Lodger, a British silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, was produced in 1926 and released in 1927. It starred Ivor Novello as a mysterious young man who lodges in a London home at a time when a number of blonde-haired young women have been murdered in the city. It was one of the most significant British films of the decade, praised by critics who in particular appreciated Hitchcock's importation of German techniques which were used to create suspense and atmosphere. The Lodger was released when the British film industry was struggling to survive, and it represented a sophisticated response to the problem of producing distinctive film drama at a time when the market was more or less dominated by Hollywood's films. Hitchcock's adaptation of a popular story, based on the Jack the Ripper murders, can be linked to contemporary fears of, and ambivalence about, modernity and city life, and is distinctively British in its settings. As this chapter will also argue, it raises questions of gender identity which featured in many German films of this period (Petro, 1989).