The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
Short description
A serial killer known as the Avenger is targeting young blonde women in London, and the police have yet to catch him. Into the Bunting family's lodging house comes a newcomer, Jonathan Drew, who rents a room and soon shows odd habits: he keeps late hours, covers his face in the fog, and takes little interest in the household. The family's daughter, Daisy, is drawn to him even though she is involved with a police officer working the murder case, and the suspicion that their quiet tenant might be the killer grows.
Alfred Hitchcock directed this 1927 British silent film, the first of the forty-three features listed for him and the one that established his reputation, followed by Easy Virtue the next year. He also wrote the screenplay with Eliot Stannard, and Michael Balcon and Carlyle Blackwell produced. Ivor Novello plays the title lodger, with Marie Ault and Arthur Chesney as the Buntings, June Tripp as Daisy and Malcolm Keen as Joe Chandler.
The film's reputation has held up well: it rates 7.3 on IMDb, 7.2 on TMDB, and critics' reviews place it higher still at 8 out of 10.
What's left behind the scenes
- Alfred Hitchcock's cameo – a man sitting with his back to the camera at a desk in the editorial office at the five-minute mark of the film.
- The silent version of the film was restored by the British Film Institute's National Archive with the support of the British Council.
- Russian audiences will see the restored version of the film for the first time in August 2014 at the 'Hitchcock: Nine Unknowns' festival, organized by the British Council.
- After a private screening, distributor Charles M. Woolf, who was skeptical of Hitchcock's experiments, told the director: "Your film is terrible, we will put it on the shelf and forget about it." However, the film eventually reached the screens thanks to the director of the Gainsborough Pictures studio, Michael Balcon, and editor, Ivore Montague.
- In the opening scene of the film, Hitchcock planned to show the victim of a maniac being pulled out of the Thames at night against the backdrop of the Charing Cross Bridge. However, Scotland Yard forbade him from filming on the bridge. Hitchcock repeated his request several times until Scotland Yard hinted that if the scene was shot in one night, the police would "look the other way." Hitchcock quickly sent the actors and cameramen to the location. However, when the film was developed, it turned out that the footage on the bridge was missing. After a long search, Hitchcock found out that the cameraman had forgotten to put the lens on the camera before the night shoot.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
