The Lodger (1944)

The Lodger
Directed by John Brahm
Written by Barré Lyndon from the novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes
1944/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Kitty Langley: You can’t love and hate at the same time.

Slade: You can! And it’s a problem then…[/box]

There’s no doubt about the culprit in this remake of the source material for Hitchcock’s silent The Lodger (1927).  Laird Cregar is creepy yet oddly sympathetic as Jack the Ripper and the film drips with Gothic shadows and fog.

Mr. Slade (Cregar) is a mild-mannered eccentric who seeks lodging in a respectable London household.  The landlady Mrs. Bonting (Sara Allgood) doesn’t bother to ask for references since Slade is so obviously a gentleman who has paid in advance.  He takes two rooms, a bedroom to live in and an attic room for his “experiments”.  The Bonting’s niece Kitty (Merle Oberon), who sings and dances in a music hall review in Whitehall, is staying with them for the time being.  The big topic of conversation at the Bontings’, as everywhere else in London, are the horrible series of actresses being stabbed and mutilated in Whitehall by the Ripper.

One of the ladies murdered was a has-been music hall performer who once used Kitty’s dressing room.  She visited Kitty immediately prior to the crime and got money from her. This leads Inspector John Warwick (George Sanders) to Kitty’s door.  It is 1944 (or 1902) and they must immediately fall in love.  But Kitty is kind to Slade and he begins to love her too … or is that a homicidal obsession?

Some might say Cregar goes well over the top but it is the kind of overdone performance that is so compelling as to be almost hypnotic.  There is always a very human sadness behind the histrionics.  Lucien Ballard, Oberon’s husband at the time, makes her look beautiful and the streets of London look superbly eerie.   The score by Hugo Friedhofer is another of the film’s delights.  The story is nothing new but is well worth watching nonetheless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFz1LZrjtHQ

Trailer (?)