The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)

Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 silent film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (often referred to as just The Lodger) is a murder mystery of sorts. There is a Jack the Ripper-type murderer in the town who kills blonde women on Tuesday's. At the same time a rather suspicious man rents a room from a family and it appears he is the murderer. The viewers eventually learn he is innocent and his sister was the first murdered girl. My main problem with this film is the identity of the actual killer is never revealed. Similarly, the killer's motive is never revealed. The source material for this film has the lodger being the murderer, but studio executives wouldn't allow this as the actor playing the lodger was quite popular at the time and portraying him as a murderer might harm his reputation. Several later Hitchcock films had similar changes and I think they were detriments in all the films.

While this was actually Hitchcock's third film, he often considered it his first. Hitchcock spent some time before his career as a director working with filmmakers in Germany and it shows in this film. The film is heavily influenced by Expressionistic filmmakers like Murnau and Lang. The film also contains several themes that would recur throughout Hitchcock's career. The film contains a cameo by Hitchcock early on, it depicts an innocent man on the run, and it throws in romance during a murder mystery.

Overall, I didn't find this film particularly enjoyable. It seemed like almost everything that happened until the end of the film was rather pointless. While the ending got a little more exciting, the aforementioned problems don't really help make up for a rather dull film. The film may incorporate quite a few elements of Hitchcock's later work, but this has a long way to go to compare favorably to Hitchcock's better films.

60/100
D-