Silent movies - The Lodger: A Story From the London Fog

Today we are going to jump to yet another genre within my silent movie "project" - crime.
The movie is "The Lodger: A Story From the London Fog" from 1927 which, despite being Alfred Hitchcock's third film, is regarded as the first one that's truly Hitchcockian.
I watched it on YouTube here.

"The Lodger" is based on the 1913 novel with the same title written by Marie Belloc Lowndes and inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.

Public domain via Wikimedia

The film starts with a young blonde woman screaming.
Next you see an advertisement for a show called "Golden Curls" before you see the woman on the ground, murdered, a note pinned to her coat saying "The Avenger" in a triangle.
A witness describes the murderer she has seen, tall, the lower half of his face hidden by a scarf.
The woman has become the seventh blonde victim of the serial killer who always strikes on a Tuesday.

Next we go to the house of the Buntings and their daughter Daisy, a mannequin. Joe, the policeman who's in love with Daisy, is visiting.
Then a mysterious looking man hiding half of his face under a scarf is turning up at the door asking to rent a room. When shown to the room, he insists on the portraits of blonde ladies to be taken off the wall as they "get on his nerves".

Over time, the lodger seems more and more suspicious to the Buntings and Joe who has been assigned to "The Avenger" case, but can't prevent the eighth murder.
Mrs. Bunting's reason is the lodger going out late at night and another victim being found the next day, also he has locked a cabinet in his room. Mr. Bunting gets nervous when he buys a dress for Daisy as a gift and Joe can't stand the lodger and Daisy obviously being drawn to one another.
So they try to keep Daisy away from the lodger, but she won't have that and goes on a late night date with him which is interrupted by Joe whom she then tells she never wants to see him again.

When they are home again, Joe turns up with some colleagues to search the lodger's room. In the locked cabinet they find a gun, newspaper clippings about "The Avenger", a map of the murder sites, and the portrait of a blonde girl.
The lodger explains that it's his murdered sister, but Joe arrests him, anyway. The lodger escapes, handcuffed, and when Daisy finds him, he tells her the story of his sister and how his mother urged him on her deathbed to not rest until justice is done.
Daisy takes him to a pub and gives him brandy to warm him up, but his hands being hidden raise suspicion, even more so after they leave and Joe comes in to call the station to tell them about the escape. An angry mob forms hunting after the lodger and beating him despite Daisy and Joe, who has been given the information that "The Avenger" has been arrested, trying to defend him. Only when a paper boy turns up with the news, the mob lets go of him and he falls into Daisy's arms.

In the end, we see the lodger, Daisy, and her parents at his grand house, living happily ever after, no doubt.

I think I wanted to like the movie more than I actually did because so many people praise its brilliance. It might have had to do with my watching it while being sick. Although it's not extremely long, I couldn't even make it through in one go, possibly because I didn't feel good, possibly because I found some scenes to be too long for my liking and not very relatable.
If I thought my lodger could be a serial killer with a blonde girl obsession, would I want him to live in my house where my blonde daughter lives as well?
Where does Daisy take that blind faith in him from? Why is she so sure he's innocent? On the other hand, I feel Joe - whom I didn't like much throughout the movie - only arrests the lodger out of jealousy. The gun, map, newspaper clippings or even the portrait don't prove much, he could just be a person obsessed with true crime like all the others greedily waiting for news on the case. If his sister was the first victim, was he never mentioned in the case files or didn't Joe even read those?
Why didn't the lodger go to the police instead of insisting to bring the killer down himself? I'm sure his mother would have been okay with that.

Someone wrote that the "second part felt more like a romance than a mystery or thriller" and I agree.
The lodger looked very soulful and haunted and I wasn't even surprised that he wasn't the murderer in the end. To me, it would have been more of a plot twist if he had been.
It is said that Hitchcock had actually planned the lodger to be the murderer, but that the studio thought that Ivor Novello, who was a matinee idol, couldn't possibly be. There couldn't even be an ambiguous ending and to be honest, I found the happy ending a bit flat although I should have been happy for the young lovers, I guess.

What I liked were the use of light and shadow, angles, and effects which Hitchcock brought to perfection throughout his career, but for me they weren't enough to support the plot.

A note on the score for the version I watched. It was commissioned for the restored movie and is by Nitin Sawhney. I found it worked very well in some scenes, but an absolute no go for me was the singing in two scenes, that just didn't fit in there.

I don't know, maybe I would feel different watching it with a clear head a second time. I'll let you know if I try again.

Sources:
1. Matt Buchholz: Week 28: The Lodger (1927), Contradicting Myself, and Sound. On: Hitchcock 52, July 15, 2016
2. Christina Wehner: The Lodger (1927). On: Christina Wehner - Classic movies, musicals, old books, and the Great American Songbook, August, 13, 2018
3. Sam Wigley: Then and now: The Lodger reviewed. On: British Film Institute - Features, August 10, 2012
4. Philip Kemp: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog: The first true Hitchcock movie. On: The Criterion Collection - Essay, June 27, 2017

Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris

First of all, let me admit that I'm cheating twice with this post. It's inspired by the Springtime in Paris event that Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and Lisa from Boondock Ramblings have on their blogs this spring.
Not all of the movies are available to me, though. For tomorrow, Erin and Lisa have planned to watch the 2022 movie "Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris" with Lesley Manville. I've seen some of that on TV, but not the whole movie, and I can't really remember all the details.
So, instead I went back 30 years before that movie and watched the TV movie "Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris" (notice the tiny difference?) with the wonderful Angela Lansbury.
Being the rebel I am, I also don't post this on the same day as Thursday is my silent movie day, and being weird the way I am, I don't like to post twice on one day, I'm here today.

"Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris" is based on Paul Gallico's book of the same title, at least in the USA. In the UK, the title was changed to "Flowers for Mrs Harris". I couldn't find out why although both titles make sense, also not why the apostrophe was dropped which referred to Mrs. Harris' dialect. I found the book on the Internet Archive and gave it a quick read as it is only 157 pages.
You can find the movie on YouTube, not the best quality, but watchable.

So, who is Mrs. Harris and why does she go to Paris?
Ada Harris is a hardworking London charwoman with a circle of wealthy clients.

After a short introduction of her and her friend Vi, also a char, on the bus, you see her arriving at Lady Dant's house where she finds two Dior gowns hanging on the wardrobe from which Lady Dant wants to choose one for the new Queen's coronation ball.
Mrs. Harris is blown away and asks how much a gown like that costs and is told it's £450 (I did a little check, in 1953 that would have been around $1260 which may give you an idea).
From now on Mrs. Harris is obsessed by the idea to own a dress by Dior. After winning the football pools, not the jackpot unfortunately, she feels she's off to a good start and begins scrimping and saving, denying herself pleasures like going to the movies or the pub.
It takes her three years to save up. Her plan is to fly to Paris, buy a dress and fly back the same evening.
She makes it to Dior and gets rejected by the manageress Madame Colbert, but her tears make Madame change her mind and she gets her a seat at the afternoon show, much to the resentment of the director and a wealthy customer. Her seat neighbor is a Marquis who's enchanted by her (being reminded of the kind char at the English school he attended when he was young) and who approves of Madame's refusal to remove her when the director demands it.
Mrs. Harris chooses an opulent pink dress shown by head model Natasha, but is devastated upon hearing that it will take a week to make it because she doesn't have the money to stay in Paris. Mme Colbert and Natasha convince André, the house's accountant who happens to be in love with Natasha, to let her stay with him.
However, the fittings have to be done in secret to avoid the director.
From there on, Mrs. Harris has an impact on all of her new friends' lives. She brings the Marquis and his daughter and granddaughter together again, she helps Natasha and André find their love for each other, and with the help of the Marquis she achieves acknowledgement for Mme Colbert's husband who died in the war as a member of the French resistance.
When the dress is ready, though, the director catches them out and orders her to leave and the dress to be destroyed.
Of course, her friends at Dior don't let her down and contact the Marquis who then goes to Christian Dior himself.
The last problem is that no one told Mrs. Harris about customs for which she of course doesn't have the money, but they also find a solution for that by advising her to simply tell the truth. Instead of a Dior carton, they put the dress in a cheap suitcase, and when Mrs. Harris tells the customs agent she has a Dior dress in there, he doesn't believe her and therefore doesn't even open the suitcase.
In the end, you see her hanging up the dress in her flat remembering Paris and the party her friends gave her - even if Vi doesn't believe her.

I have always loved Angela Lansbury (despite only having seen about two episodes of "Murder, She Wrote") and I think she was great for this part.
This isn't a deep movie, this is a bowl of comforting hot soup on a cold day, it celebrates kindness generating kindness, and for that I really like it.

You know there's a but now, don't you?
Let's compare it to the book and you will see that the movie strays here and there.
- In the book, Mrs. Harris goes to the dog races after winning the pools and puts £50 on a dog called "Haute Couture" which she regards as a sign. She loses, but shortly after she finds a diamond pin and gets a reward of £25, and that is a sign for her to keep saving, but not depend on luck. In the movie, there's just the diamond pin.
- In the book, there's no director whom they have to hide from.
- Madame Colbert's husband isn't dead. He works for the Foreign Office and never gets a promotion despite his good work. Mrs. Harris tells the Marquis about it and he can help with that.
- The Marquis mentions children who are "scattered and far removed". You don't get to see any of them, there is no reuniting scene. He and Mrs. Harris do talk about her love to flowers, especially geraniums, though.
- In the movie, Natasha has an abusive rich boyfriend who gets punched by André when he insults Natasha which then makes her realize she loves André. In the book, there's no boyfriend. André is in love with Natasha and she falls in love with him quickly, but they both think it's not mutual and don't dare saying anything until Mrs. Harris comes right out with it.
- The dress is completely different (in each movie I have seen, by the way). It is mentioned that it is a dress meant for a much younger woman, but it doesn't have Cinderella quality. In the book it's not puffy and it's from black velvet with jet beads - which I'm a sucker for, so I would really have liked to see that! - with the top being a froth of cream, pink and white chiffon, tulle, and lace.
- The biggest difference, however, in this movie is the happy ending. In the book (and other movies), Mrs. Harris lends the dress to one of her clients for one night, a budding actress who wants to impress a producer. Huge mistake. There's an accident and the dress gets burned badly. The actress goes off for a week without even leaving a real apology or any compensation.
Mrs. Harris goes home, hides the dress away in the suitcase because she can't bear looking at it longer and weeps until she gets disturbed by the insistent ringing of her doorbell. She opens the door to a messenger who brings her loads of boxes full of beautiful flowers (that's why I said both titles make sense) sent by her friends from Paris.
That's when she decides not having the dress repaired because what she has gained is not a dress, it's friendship, memories, experience, adventure, and love - and no one can take that from her.

So yeah, all of that is missing from this movie and maybe Angela Lansbury could have been a bit rougher around the edges, a bit grittier, a bit less glamorous looking at the end, but hey, sometimes a bowl of hot soup is just the thing you need.
Not deep, no big moral, just a bit of joy for everyone.