Thoughts on The Lodger (1927)

This Friday I have to turn in a paper for my Alfred Hitchcock class: the one that spurred on this Hitchcock marathon. It involved looking at a Hitchcock movie we hadn't seen specifically for class and I wasn't going to write this until the paper was done.

Well, it's done. So...

I just saw The Lodger on Monday night.

And it was pretty great.

I'm not too familiar with silent films myself, and this is probably the first one that I've seen the entirety of. However, this is really good, and a great introduction for anyone who wants to get into silent films.

The main thing that makes me like it so much is the visuals. Obviously you're going to need visuals to take center stage for a silent film, but this just does such a good job. In the first few minutes, the audience knows exactly what's going on and the only dialogue you get is one line, nine words long. The camera focuses on just the right things at the right times and it feels cohesive.

And to get around the lack of sound, Hitchcock used some different techniques. In one scene, a man is pacing the floor and the people below can hear him. They look up and they see the chandelier sway. And then in the next shot, the ceiling is turned clear, and you can see the man's footsteps. It's a real floor, too. I really admire that dedication and that inventiveness.

I also loved the way the lighting was used. It was used in a way that it made things feel claustrophobic and the resulting shadows were creepy, but it was all effective in setting the tone of the movie, which is kind of morbid.

Now, the visuals aren't the only thing in the movie. The acting for one. It was pretty good, but I saw a lot of what people might call overacting. It didn't really bother me and it fit well enough considering the movie is silent, but some people may be put off by it.

The set design was very good, and that combined with the lighting made the movie feel appropriately claustrophobic, as I mentioned above.

The soundtrack was a bit of a sticking point. At least, in my version of the movie. Apparently, this movie has had several different soundtracks. Mine was not that great. It was sometimes tonally inconsistent and cut in and out at weird times, and it repeated occasionally. It was a bit distracting seeing as that was all there was in my ears for around eighty minutes.

The story was pretty good. There's just one thing at the end that I think might have fit better. I don't want to spoil it here, but originally, Hitchcock wanted something different, but it was changed in part due to Ivor Novello (the star)'s fame.

And yeah. This is a really good movie. I think it's one of my favorite Hitchcock films so far, and it gave me a new appreciation for silent films too. I would recommend this to anyone who's a fan of Hitchcock, silent films, or just something different, because I really enjoyed and appreciated it. If I had to give it a score, I would probably give it an eight or a nine out of ten.