Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Lodger (1926)

This third film by Alfred Hitchcock was his first thriller. It is also the earliest of Hitchcock’s films to have been released on DVD home video. This inspired account of a Jack-the-Ripper-style murderer named “The Avenger,” who kills blond-haired women on Tuesday nights in London, shows a young and creative directorial talent at work.

Hitchcock worked from his own scenario of star Ivor Novello’s stage play for this initial foray into what would later be familiar Hitchcock territory. Novello portrays a strange and aloof lodger, who stays in a boardinghouse room above a lower-middle-class family. In the evening streets of London, the Avenger’s victims are being found closer and closer to the lodging houses. Eventually the landlords, and their daughter’s police detective suitor, come to suspect that the mysterious lodger has unholy designs on their beautiful blonde daughter. Can their suspicions be confirmed before it is too late?

Throughout the film there are examples of visual inspiration in shots of a restless lodger in the room above pacing back and forth as seen, through the floor (as if eyes could read what ears are unable to hear in silent films), by the landlady below; or the shadow of a cross falling across the face of the lodger caused by the frame of window panes; or in the desperate lodger suspended only by handcuffs on a spiked metal fence. A memorable shot looks down the darkened staircase of the boardinghouse, and nothing more can be seen than a single hand of the lodger slowly circling on the handrail as he creeps quietly out into the night. We particularly like a shot of the detective’s hat in close-up tipped downward as he examines evidence, then, after a long pause, the slow turn upward to reveal his eyes full of suspicion. The Lodger is an early treat for fans of Hitchcock’s distinctive storytelling technique.

There are also a few hackneyed story elements and direction. For instance, the boardinghouse address is 13, there are the comical eye-popping Novello expressions, and his close-ups that utilized a generous amount of lens diffusion normally reserved for aging actresses. And there is the moment when the lodger strikes a fly off Daisy’s blouse with a bread knife and reacts with a wide-eyed, goofy smile that never fails to elicit scoffing laughs from today’s audiences.

On this film, Hitchcock had an unusual dilemma causes when the story and the star clashed. Ivor Novello was a matinee idol, cherished by legion British women, yet here he was playing a character that may well have been the most gruesome murderer in modern English history. Hitchcock had to manipulate audience expectations (that heartthrob Novello certainly is not a murderer) with a good dose of doubt. As ambiguous as the source novel was, the film adaptation had to take a firmer stance on the guilt of the lodger.

There are plenty of signs that the audience is intended to pickup long before the characters in the story — that the lodger is creepy, acts strangely and is easily agitated, that he is hiding something (namely his little medical instrument? satchel), that he can’t stand the sight of blonde women. Yet, he is attracted to blonde Daisy (the actress June — no last name). Will she be his next victim? He is seen struggling with his inner demons. He paces to and fro like a caged animal. He looks as though he contemplate beating Daisy with a fireplace poker. We do later see him mapping the murderous attacks with the triangle symbol of the Avenger.

Of the characters, the least likeable is Joe, the police detective, with his stupidly offensive comments that often repulses Daisy. Joe (the totally unappealing Malcolm Keen) is an awkward simpleton, a childish buffoon, a twit — almost comic relief when paired with Daisy’s father (Arthur Chesney — a foreshadowing of future Hitchcock player Edmund Gwenn). So pleased with himself when he thinks he is still in Daisy’s favor — here comes blundering Joe, all possessive and jealous, now firmly rejected by Daisy — he is forlorn Joe. He becomes vengeful Joe. He is peabrained Joe, for in the end — in his own mind — he becomes the hero, Joe.

Worth noting (given his exposure to German expressionist filmmaking techniques before making The Lodger) is Hitchcock’s expressionistic presentation of the mother’s growing fears and suspicions at night when she hears the lodger leave the boardinghouse. There on her darkened bedroom wall is the expressionistic angled light cast from a street lamp below, and there are a number of close-ups of the mother that could have been lifted from a German or Soviet production of the time.

We dare say that this film is his most entertaining and flashy narrative until 1929’s Blackmail. And, for those wondering, Hitchcock makes the first of his series of on-screen cameo appearances, sitting with his back to the camera, talking on the telephone, in an early newspaper office sequence.

— Carl Bennett

This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered at 2K high-definition from archival 35mm print materials.

Supplementary material includes Hitchcock’s Downhill (1927) starring Ivor Novello, with a piano score by Brand; a new interview with film scholar William Rothman; a new video essay by art historian Steven Jacobs; excerpts from audio interviews with Hitchcock by filmmakers François Truffaut (1962) and Peter Bogdanovich (1963); a radio adaptation of The Lodger from 1940, directed by Hitchcock; a new interview with Brand on composing for silent film; and insert booklet essays on The Lodger and Downhill by critic Philip Kemp.

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Supplementary material includes Hitchcock’s Downhill (1927) starring Ivor Novello, with a piano score by Brand; a new interview with film scholar William Rothman; a new video essay by art historian Steven Jacobs; excerpts from audio interviews with Hitchcock by filmmakers François Truffaut (1962) and Peter Bogdanovich (1963); a radio adaptation of The Lodger from 1940, directed by Hitchcock; a new interview with Brand on composing for silent film; and insert booklet essays on The Lodger and Downhill by critic Philip Kemp.

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The film is presented with a new music score composed by Nitin Sawhney that is performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

North American collectors will need a region-free Blu-ray Disc player capable of outputting a signal compatible with their HD system to view this edition.

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The film is presented with a new music score composed by Nitin Sawhney that is performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

After years of waiting, silent film enthusiasts can finally add a high-quality home video edition of The Lodger to their collections. Previously, bad prints and videos made watching The Lodger tough going. The best video version of the film we had previously seen was the Samuel Goldwyn Company edition prepared from 35mm materials. This edition outstrips that in clarity of image details.

More than 1000 hours of digital restoration work went into the preparation of this edition’s video master, transferred full-frame and at a natural-speed from 35mm materials prepared by the British Film Institute. Signs of dust, speckling, emulsion damage and timing marks were digitally removed, while digital image stabilization removed the print’s moderate frame jitters. The film has been color-toned predominantly in sepiatones, with bluetones for night exteriors, with some color-tinting for selected interiors, and black & white for night interiors.

In comparison to the dubious best of countless previous home video editions, all of them transferred from substandard 16mm reduction prints, the results here are stunning. Now, there is a great deal of image detail, with intact (for the most part) image highlights and open shadows that gives the picture a depth heretofore unrealized on home video. Details are such, for example, to clearly see the crudely hand-drawn prop for an inset shot of a newspaper story on the latest victim as examined by Joe and Daisy’s father. For the first time we have a detailed print from which to confirm Hitchcock’s screen appearance early in the film as a newspaper editor, and disprove assumptions that he also appears near the end of the film, in the fence sequence as a flat-capped, goateed member of the vengeful mob.

The film is presented with two music scores. The 1997 score by Paul Zaza (in 2.0 mono) is a disaster, being a Jekyll and Hyde hodge-podge of recordings and music styles that range from orchestral (with too much reverb), synthesizer and vintage jazz recordings, calling to mind the awful cobbled-together scores on the countless budget home video editions of The Lodger that collectors have had to endure over the years. We much prefer the 1999 orchestral music score (in 5.1 surround) by Ashley Irwin, with its pleasing composition and intelligent arrangement that punctuates some of the film’s action.

This edition’s supplemental material includes full-length audio commentary by historian Patrick McGilligan, a featurette “The Sound of Silence: The Making of The Lodger” in 16x9 anamorphic video, with interviews of filmmakers, authors, critics and historians Mary Stone (Hitchcock’s granddaughter), Peter Bogdanovich, Richard Schickel, Raymond Benson, Lesley Brill, Drew Casper, Charlotte Chandler, Jonathan Freedman, Miles Kreuger, Bill Krohn, Jonathan Kuntz, Leonard Leff, Stephen Rebello, Tom Schatz, Will Schmenner, Bruce Scivally, Collin Stutz, Dennis Wolkowicz and Robert Yanal (23 minutes), an audio-only presentation of the 1940 Suspense radio series adaptation of The Lodger as directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Hitchcock film veterans Herbert Marshall and Edmund Gwenn (28? minutes), individual audio interviews with Hitchcock by Peter Bogdanovich and Francois Truffaut, “Hitchcock 101” in 16x9 anamorphic video, with Mary Stone reminiscining about being Hitch’s granddaughter and her college days (3 minutes), a restoration comparison, and a stills gallery (22 images).

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With these being the first high-quality DVD releases of Sabotage and Young and Innocent, along with the inclusion of other Hitchcock sound features that have been out-of-print for some time, this collection seems to be a tremendous bargain despite its cost.

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Supplementary material includes a video introduction to the film by Charles Barr; and a presentation of the “Archival Version” of the film (read: “old, unstable, lower-quality BFI preservation version from the 1970s?”) that was the basis for many of the 16mm reduction prints that were utilized for the substandard home video editions noted below.

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

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This DVD edition from Whirlwind Media was transferred from a 16mm reduction print, which appears to be the same 16mm Vintage Films print utilized by all the other budget home video editions of The Lodger. But we ask, why? Why bother making the best transfer available of a lousy print? 35mm prints of the film do exist. Why? To stay within the tight production budget is the reason.

The edition’s opening credits consist of a series of still frames of the original film credits to extend their run time longer that of the abbreviated 16mm print. A still frame of the main title dissolves to the full-motion completion of the shot (the fan shape closing on the representation of the mysterious lodger), followed by a still frame of the production credits, the cast listing, and finally a still frame representation of the original British censorship certificate. Each still frame was created post-transfer so interlaced resolution lines will be detectable on standard and HD monitors. The credit title for Hitchcock’s direction is not represented here because the 16mm source print shows a brief glimpse of the title during a dissolve but is never fully or clearly rendered.

The video transfer is very good and runs at the proper speed but cannot to do anything to help the substandard 16mm print. The print’s flaws include soft image detail, some burnt out image highlights, tight cropping, speckling, frame jitters and brief sections of missing footage. The framing of the 16mm print has always been so tight that Malcolm Keen’s facial expression, 22:57 minutes into the film, is missed because his head is cut off by the tight framing. Most HD monitors will show all of the image area encoded into DVD, which will help here. Some sections of the print’s image indicate that the original source material for the 16mm reduction print was beginning to shrink, causing much of this print’s jumpiness. The motion and art intertitles are all represented, but digitally-reset title cards replace the original static dialogue intertitles.

A digitally-recorded but cobbled together music score of compositions by Stavinsky, Bizet, Debussy, Britten, Bartok, Saint-Saens and others is performed by several Russian musicians on pipe organ, piano and violin, and by a small chamber orchestra and small choir. The music is intelligently assembled but doesn’t always feel appropriate to the action. The editing is sometimes abrupt and tells unerringly of its piece-meal assembly.

Murder! (1930) is well-represented here, especially when compared to the DVD edition released by Madacy Entertainment. This Whirlwind edition features a video transfer with well-balanced greytones and open framing (the Madacy edition being quite tightly cropped). We have not seen the DVD edition of Murder! from Laserlight, but suspect that this Whirlwind edition is the best available on home video.

The DVD also includes a radio performance of The Lodger from 1940, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring previous Hitchcock actors Herbert Marshall and Edmund Gwenn who, like Hitch, had made their way professionally to America. The program was the premiere episode of the radio series Suspense. And, as in his films, Hitchcock makes a last-minute cameo appearance.

Rounding out the extras is a newsreel clip from 1930(?) of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt talking about letters from the New York state public. The clip’s duration is 1:48, not the 5:13 listed on the packaging. Also included is a Felix the Cat cartoon entitled Two-Lip Time (1926), which features an early synchronized soundtrack. The sparse ‘interactive chapter’ features a filmography (title and year), a descriptive listing of Hitchcock’s on-screen cameos, and a bibliography.

Is the content worth purchasing this DVD? For the price, yes. The transfer of Murder! is very-good. The radio performance of The Lodger makes its first appearance on digital media. The other extras are OK. And even the transfer of the 16mm print of The Lodger is the best available on home video. But, damn, I am so weary of seeing the same low quality 16mm print on home video — see below! The Lodger is the major caveat in our recommendation of this disc, and it’s the chief reason for a silent film collector to purchase the disc.

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The Lodger remains one of our favorite silent era films despite the abysmal quality of all the home video versions (and there have been six) that we have seen. Among the videotape releases, the version of The Lodger from Hollywood Select Video had been, until better DVD editions were released, marginally better. That version suffers greatly from the substandard 16mm print from which the video transfer, which runs 95 minutes, was taken. (All home video versions appear to have been prepared from 16mm Vintage Films prints and are, subsequently, of low quality.) The picture is only fair on the Hollywood Select Video version, being of flat contrast and too dark in low light scenes (as in the miniature shot flashing “To-night GOLDEN CURLS” or of the downtown lighted news ticker) and for many of the intertitles. But the flat contrast does keep what few light area details are left in the lousy 16mm print from disappearing altogether.

Laserlight Digital’s DVD version of The Lodger (packaged with Hitchcock’s 1936 thriller Sabotage) is at times better than previous home video versions and at others worse. The chief difference is the higher contrast of the Laserlight video transfer (again, from a substandard 16mm print). Intertitles and dark scenes are easier to discern due to the extra light being pushed through the dark print. However, the contrasty transfer burns out light area picture details.

Ultimately, we favored the visual quality of the Whirlwind Media edition noted above of The Lodger over this Laserlight DVD edition. Despite the intrusiveness of some reset intertitles, the Whirlwind edition, which features better canned musical accompaniment, is a less laborious viewing experience than the Laserlight edition. Of Sabotage we can say that the Madacy edition features a slightly better picture than the Laserlight version here, with a better (i.e. flatter) tonal range and fewer compression artifacts. Whirlwind Media’s DVD release of The Lodger is the edition that we recommend. It is far from an ideal experience of The Lodger, but it is the best of several substandard home video editions taken from the same 16mm reduction print that is now available.

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Another budget DVD edition of Hitchcock’s The Lodger doesn’t bring any improvement for Hitch collectors. With framing, tonal quality and source print virtually the same as other DVD editions noted here, the only difference between this disc and its counterparts is value for the money. This collection pulls together ten Hitchcock films for yet another cheap DVD release. For dollars to the number of films, this is marginally a better value than the Laserlight edition.

The source material for The Lodger is the same Vintage Films 16mm reduction print that has been used for other DVD editions. The opening credits are nearly complete, with only Hitchcock’s title card missing, being barely visible in the beginning of a dissolve. The video transfer has done a slightly better job of holding a reasonable greyscale range, without going too contrasty. But the print is of low quality and makes viewing tough going. Since the Brentwood imprint is from the same BCI/Navarre company as did release the Navarre edition below, expect the two editions to be identical in visual quality.

The musical accompaniment is another annoying mish-mash of preexisting orchestral recordings of varying quality, and is presented in 2.0 mono and 5.1 mono — which is unlistenable due to a persistent series of audio drop outs. Annoying.

Many of the other films in this collection are presented in transfers that are slightly more contrasty than other available DVD editions. Read our review of the Brentwood edition of The Ring (1927).

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Yet another DVD edition of The Lodger has utlized the same moderate-quality 16mm reduction print for its video transfer. The print is moderately contrasty, with soft image detail and grey but plugged-up shadows, light speckling, and some dust, splices, and emulsion chipping. The video transfer has been made at sound speed, which compromises Hitchcock’s pacing, and the framing is tight and sometimes crops the top of heads, but the intertitles are readable. This edition also passes the true test of any transfer from these 16mm prints, and that is the readability of the lighted news ticker at night that carries news of the Avenger’s latest murder.

The presentation is accompanied by a canned orchestral soundtrack.

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The set also includes an unidentified Hitchcock radio appearance, Hitchcock trailers, and a (probably brief and bad) Hitchcock documentary, all possibly lifted from other cheap editions.

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This DVD edition has been transferred from a 16mm reduction print.

The film is presented with a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

In all likelihood, this presentation is identical to the St. Clair Vision edition noted above.

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This DVD edition has been transferred from the same 16mm reduction print from Vintage Films as many of the other cheap editions.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

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This DVD collection has all been transferred from the same Vintage Films 16mm reduction print (and possibly the same video transfer) that has been utilized for most of the cheap DVD editions noted here.

The film is presented with a music score compiled from preexisting recordings.

The supplementary material includes a ‘documentary’ The Story of Alfred Hitchock in 16:9 widescreen (22 minutes) and a collection of Hitchcock film trailers (39 minutes).

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North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

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This Region 2 PAL DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

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North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

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It is unknown whether the film is presented with a custom music score or with preexisting music recordings.

North American collectors will need a region-free DVD player to view this edition.

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This Region 4 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

Other BRITISH FILMS of the silent era available on home video.