Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

mark.waltz Almost 130 years after the notorious series of brutal murders in the Whitechapel district of London, the identity of who the culprit was is still being pondered. There have been theories as to who it was, and a fictional culprit became the source of a Marie Belloc Lowndes novel and five movies spawned from it. Of course, the most famous are the 1927 Hitchcock film and a 20th Century Fox 1944 remake with Laird Cregar and Merle Oberon of which this is pretty much an almost identical remake of. The only difference really between the two is in the casting of the title character. Laird Cregar was a portly character actor who pretty much took over where Z-grade British horror star Tod Slaughter had left off, although his films were definitely higher budgeted and certainly better detailed. Here, the role of Slade has been seemingly youthened (and definitely thinned) with the casting of Jack Palance, fresh from his Oscar nominated villain turns in "Sudden Fear" and "Shane".While Palance may seem younger and definitely thinner, the creepiness of Slade is still prevalent with his deep set eyes, somewhat gaunt facial features, and that cloak that screams "Jekyll and Hyde". The lovely Constance Smith takes on the role which Merle Oberon had played in 1944, a personable music hall star who has a compassionate nature and an unexplained attraction towards the mysterious lodger. The music hall numbers are practically identical to the previous version, and in the final one (where Palance attends), the terror really erupts through his eyes as he notices the lust of the male audience staring at Ms. Smith.As this is pretty much a re-tread of what film audiences had just seen only nine years before, there really aren't many chills, just the tension leading up to the exposure of Palance as a psycho. In fact, I'm not really sure that the writers intended to say that Palance was the actual Jack the Ripper. He could have just become obsessed with Smith, been sympathetic to what he psychotically felt the ripper's mission was, and just took it in his own hands to try to "save" Smith from herself. Frances Bavier ("The Andy Griffith Show's" Aunt Bea) and Rhys Williams offer decent characterizations as Smith's aunt and uncle, but Byron Palmer seems ineffectual as the inspector determined to expose Palance.While the London atmosphere is definitely appropriately murky, the story is much better fictionalized as the 1979 Sherlock Holmes mystery "Murder By Decree" which gives a more logical explanation as to who the killer was and why Scotland Yard was never able to solve it (or at least reveal the truth). This should be viewed strictly as a moody thriller that doesn't really try to claim its telling the real story, but either as a possibility or the story of a wronged man who may have been crazy but only had circumstantial evidence which lead to him being believed to be the notorious serial killer of ages gone by.

Zeegrade A young Jack Palance (even when he's young he looks old) is the mysterious Mr. Slade who rents a room from Aunt Bea and her husband while conducting various experiments in the attic. His late night comings and goings raises suspicion that he in fact might very well be Jack the Ripper. If there is any doubt that he is the Ripper himself from the first scene forward than Man in the Attic will politely beat you over the head with various red flags. While not murdering local drunks and prostitutes (Ooops, Did I spoil it?) Slade becomes smitten with Lily the niece of the husband and wife he is renting the rooms from. Unfortunately for Jack, I mean Slade, Inpsector Warwick of Scotland Yard falls head over heels in love with Lily as well while investigating one of Slade's (Damn! Did it again!) the Ripper's murder of Lily's friend. It doesn't help Slade's hatred of women when he find out that Lily is a local vaudeville star that flaunts off her various wares to men on a weekly basis. Just imagine Britney Spears circa late nineteenth century. By the way, the musical performances by Lily, while not bad, just seem so out of place in this movie considering the contents of the plot. Man in the Attic has plenty of solid performances though most of the American actors didn't even attempt an English accent which is kind of bizarre. Constance Smith is quite fetching as Lily Bonner and nobody has more intimidating screen presence than Jack Palance who towers over his fellow actors. My one main concern is that this movie never once creates any suspense and it makes no attempt to throw you off path which is essential to films like this. The fact that I have to give a spoiler alert is downright laughable as it was clear who Slade really was from the moment he appeared on screen. Yes, Slade was Jack the Ripper. Believe it or not!

Brim_and_Brood This is the only version of "The Lodger" films that I have seen, and having not read the original story, I found the premise rather interesting. Jack Palance is the star here as the brooding Mr Slade with his nearly sinister demeanour keeping us suspicious for most of the film. While his emotional outbursts initially feel out of character, by the end of the film it is clear he is unbalanced and emotionally immature, and tormented enough to submerge himself into a river and not resurface.Frances Bavier and Rhys Williams work well as the Harleys, and their husband/wife banter is nice to watch. Byron Palmer as the Inspector did a passable job. The poorest acting was by Tita Phillips as the maid.While Constance Smith's performance as Lily Bonner was good, the absurdly out-of-place, overly long, poorly performed, and amateurish cancan sequences really do harm her character and the film in general. They were nearly painful to watch.The chase sequence at the end, with horse and cart navigating bends at high speed and a broken cart wheel, was an unexpected and entertaining climax.While not perfect, some bits are excellent while others are the opposite, it is certainly worth watching. It is available for free in the public domain, and a reasonable quality version can be downloaded from the Internet Archive.

Joe Drommel I recently saw an old movie from 1953 called "Man In The Attic." It stars Constance Smith a young Jack Palance. No spoilers below. Evaluations only. The setting is London of the past, where a scientist (Palance) who boards at a family's home is suspected of being the infamous Jack the Ripper. Cons: Much of the acting was wooden, some of the stage-show scenes were downright ridiculous or at least out of place, and the accents were truly awful (especially seeing Frances Bavier--Aunt Bee from Andy Griffith--try and do an English accent! Very funny as she tries at it all the way through-- the way she tries to say "bag" as a Brit, and just sounds like she's from Alabama: "bayyg" "bayyg"). Pros: I liked how all the confusion made it frustratingly impossible to determine if the 'evidence' was saying it was or was not Palance, and they did that on purpose. Is he deeply troubled because of his childhood experiences, or is he actually the madman Jack the Ripper? So hard to tell during the film, and that's the hook! Almost Hitchcockian in that way. So, obviously I thought the story line was good, and the progression-to-arc was very textbook. You can tell this would make an excellent book----which it had, actually. It had been adapted from a book called The Lodger by a lady called Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes (I never heard of her before). The movie ended somewhat too abruptly, and without so much as a post-climax wrap-up or epilogue (said epilogues seeming to be more or less a post-modern convention and conspicuously 'absent' from the older films), but one assumes that the novel holds the appropriate denouement. Overall it exceeded my expectations; it was a worthy rental, a brief movie at that, and so I recommend it to you.