NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Eric266 I'm constantly amazed at how well these old movies from the 40s and 50s conveyed mood, time and space. They didn't have the CGI effects we have today to generate backgrounds so they used what they had. I think it looks more genuine than the stuff today. London's Whitechapel is an icky, smoky, dark, dank and shallow place in the 1880s. The narrow streets and sense of everything pushed together gives the whole movie a sense of claustrophobia.Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Sara Allgood play the Bontings, who open their home to Mr. Slade (Laird Cregar), the lodger of the title. He is a pathologist who carries a black medical bag, goes out at odd hours, and is kind of creepy. Merle Oberon is the Bontings' niece, Kitty, who is a stage dancer at a local theater. Lastly, George Sanders (The Saint/The Falcon) plays Scotland Yard detective Warwick.Mr. Slade's behavior becomes more and more suspicious as the Ripper killings continue and the locals are in a frenzy. The Ripper murders are handled pretty gently with only shadows and off camera screams. Nothing on camera (I think its actually more effective to imagine the murders anyway) and they play with a lot of the facts of the murders in terms of timing and level of savagery.The movie is ambiguous as to whether Slade IS the Ripper. Was he the actual Ripper or was he just "working" during the same time as the Ripper. The movie leaves that up to the audience. I preferred that to a tidy wrap up.At a crisp running time of 90 minutes plus, the cast and crew did a marvelous job of conveying the sense of fear and distrust that the ripper murders engendered. The only drawback for me were the tepid musical numbers they shoehorned in for Ms. Oberon. She has an amazing voice, but the dance numbers were so cheeky and lame (by today's standards) that it dragged down the picture for me. I kept imagining Madeline Kahn's Lili Von Schtupp from Blazing Saddles every time Ms. Oberon did one of her two dance numbers.Watch this with the lights out and a storm raging for added effect. Its a fear borne from mood, not on screen scares. Top notch.

Coventry Everybody in this world loves enigmas… The best example to prove this remains the unsolved mystery surrounding the Jack the Ripper murders in London at the end of the 19th century. For more than 125 years now, Jack the Ripper has been the source of inspiration for numerous of films, TV-shows, documentaries and novels. Whether based on facts or purely fictionalized, the notorious serial killer continuously remained a relevant and popular horror/thriller protagonist. In 1913, Marie Belloc-Lowndes wrote her novel "The Lodger" and even though her story was mainly pure fiction, the book nevertheless became one of the most prominent Jack the Ripper sagas and got adapted into at least five film scenarios already. In 1927 the book formed the inspiration for none other than Alfred Hitchcock's first steps in the cinema industry with "The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog", and in 1953 the booked help launching Jack Palance's film career with "Man in the Attic". The personal favorite version of yours truly, however, is the stunningly atmospheric and compelling 1944 version directed by the German immigrant director John Brahm and starring the charismatic Laird Cregar as the suspicious and overly introvert lodger Mr. Slade who may or may not be maniac responsible for the gruesome Ripper murders in Whitechapel. Almost every aspect about "The Lodger" is impeccable and everyone's contribution is equally important. Belloc-Lowndes' source novel narrates the story from a different and fascinating angle. While the entire city of London lives in fear because of the gruesome murders of actresses and/or showgirls, Robert and Ellen Bonting receive a new lodger for their extra room and attic in the shape of the courteous but somewhat distant Mr. Slade. He warns them that he often has to go out during the night and that he uses the attic to conduct medical experiments, but the elderly couple still attempts to connect with him. When Mr. Slade meets their lovely niece Kitty, he increasingly grows fond of her even though she's a stage actress … And Mr. Slade firmly believes that all stage actresses are putrid and on a mission to disrupt the lives of noble gentlemen! As stated above, everyone in this production contributed to the success of the film! Director John Brahm is of German descent, and thus he clearly brought the beautiful influences of silent expressionist masterpieces with him. Cinematographer Lucien Ballard stuffs the film with countless of grandiose camera angles and manages to make the fogbound city look even more menacing than she already is. The supportive cast includes a handful of fantastic names and they each deliver great performances, like George Sanders ("The Picture of Dorian Gray") as the intelligent constable, Merle Oberon ("Wuthering Heights") as the naive but beautiful and sweet object of obsession and Sir Cedric Hardwicke as the ranting newspaper-addicted estate owner. However, they all remain in the shadow – pun intended – of Laird Cregar who depicts his character so good that it's nearly indescribable! Mr. Slade is menacing and simultaneously pitiable, sophisticated as well as primitive and generally speaking just overwhelming to observe! According to news articles that I've read, Cregar struggled with many complexes, regarding his appearance as well as his homosexuality, and the disunity of his own persona definitely reflects here on screen. He wanted to avoid further typecasting and thus went on an extreme and unsupervised diet which cost him his life at the tragically young age of 28. "The Lodger" and another magnificent collaboration with John Brahm called "Hangover Square" were the final achievements of an actor that easily could have become legendary if only he had lived a little bit longer… And, last but not least, another powerful contributor to the success of "The Lodger" is definitely its time of release! The aforementioned Hitchcock adaptation perhaps came too soon and "Man in the Attic" perhaps came too late, but this version got released during a footnote revolution in the horror movie industry. In the 1930s, Universal dominated the horror business with their grotesque monsters like mummies, werewolves, vampires and Frankenstein creatures. In the early 1940s, on the other hand, producer Val Lewton and RKO Pictures started making eerie and atmospheric horror movies that gave human faces to the monsters. Suddenly evil didn't have fangs or fur anymore, but instead it had penetrating dark eyes and wore stylish suits. Cregar's Mr. Slade perfectly belongs in this horror evolution and easily ranks as one of the most memorable creeps of the decade. Admittedly "The Lodger" also has a few defaults. Mr. Slade often behaves a bit too suspiciously and nervous even though Jack the Ripper is supposed to be cold-blooded and professional, while the naivety of Kitty and the ignorance of Robert Bonting are exaggeratedly implausible. Still, it's a tremendously brilliant film from start to finish, with a breathtaking finale to boot!

vincentlynch-moonoi I suppose that when the screen writers sat down to write this script that they had to make a decision: do we let the audience know who the murderer is right away, or is the mystery where the suspense is? Here they chose the former, which requires the suspense to build as the "good guys" slowly begin to figure out who the murderer is. It's not the easiest task, but here they do it quite well (in that sense it reminded me a bit of Alfred Hitchcock's "I Confess").Sometimes this film gets labeled as a "horror" film, but it should be classed as a "suspense film". Hitchcock directed a silent version of the tale, but not this rendition...although it might remind many viewers of a Hitchcock flick. The director here -- John Brahm -- had a rather checkered career that included some brilliant "Twilight Zone" episodes, but also the horrible Dana Andrews/Jeanne Crain film "Hot Rods From Hell". This film may have been his apex.The casting here is quite good. It's a different kind of role for the lovely Merle Oberon, here as a French-style can-can dancer. She does well and makes a perfect victim, and her hair style is great because it covers her very high forehead. But Laird Cregar -- as Jack The Ripper -- is the real star here...he is "the lodger". Cregar died from an excessive diet that he took for the film following this one; he was only 31. For once, George Sanders is the good guy -- a Scotland Yard inspector, and the love interest for Merle Oberon. Sir Cedric Hardwicke does nicely as the father who at first is sure Cregar is innocent, but slowly comes around to believing his wife (Sara Allgood) that Cregar is Jack The Ripper.The sets are appropriately atmospheric, the acting very good, and the story -- though relatively predictable (but then again, that's true of most movies) -- moves at a nice pace with a nice level of suspense. Highly recommended.

Tender-Flesh Someone's stalking the streets of Whitechapel, wielding a blade against former dancehall girls and leaving their shredded corpses in back alleys. The police are baffled. The citizens are frantic. And Laird Cregar is delicious! I first saw Cregar in I Wake Up Screaming, and I was instantly hooked by his acting abilities. He's sort of a precursor to Vincent Price. And, oddly enough, Price did the radio program version of The Lodger after this film was released. Cregar is not your typical leading man. He's about 6'3 and 300lbs. I haven't been able to find out a lot about him, but I had heard he was a homosexual. This all comes together rather interestingly because the character he plays, Mr. Slade, has a rather strange if somewhat vague sexual attraction to his now deceased brother. Pretty racy stuff for 1944! But, to add to this, one of the main suspects in the real Jack the Ripper killings is Francis Tumblety, who had a well-known hatred for women and I believe was arrested for doing some nasty things with the fellows in or near Whitechapel around the time of the Ripper's nightly jaunts. Curiouser and curiouser! Some liberties had to be taken with the plot, due to the fact that censors didn't want the word "prostitute" flowing off the tongues of the actors. So, Jack has an issue with dancehall girls and actresses(this is 1888, so, not film actresses) and believes they caused the downfall of his brother. Therefore, Jack must hack! Unfortunately, you only get to see his knife at the very end of the movie, but Cregar makes up for it with his tour de force acting and the cinematography is superb. Several scenes stand out, most of them with Cregar, such as when he's been injured and is prowling the catwalks, holding his injured neck, and bars of light flash over his face as he moves towards the camera. Or when he's cornered by the brilliant George Sanders and half of Scotland Yard in one of the upper levels of the theater house, his knife finally out and ready for action--Cregar's bulging eyes stare down his hunters like a beast at bay with the only soundtrack being his labored breathing after his body has been pumped full of several bullets(another thing I liked--he didn't just drop over dead after one shot).The only thing that this movie lacked was more scenes between Cregar and Sanders. That would have made this a 10/10 for me as these two are some of my favorite actors of the time. Cregar is shy, sensitive, and refined as the eccentric Mr. Slade, a mysterious "pathologist" who comes to a residence seeking lodgings for his work. He's taken in by an older couple who also have a young maid and a niece living at the home. Mr. Slade keeps rather odd hours, you see, and he doesn't do a very good job of covering up his work. You will have to overlook the fact that 1940's cinema probably knew nothing about the forensics of murder or blood-splatter, etc. It would be a foolish thing for a serial killer to take up lodging with a family when he could be spotted at any time with bloody clothes(and given the nature of his work, VERY bloody). Merle Oberon is the naive Kitty, the niece of the older couple, and her profession and her beauty create a great conflict in Mr. Slade. On one hand, he finds her very attractive, but on the other, he remembers what sort of females did his brother in and that means Slade might have to do a little carving on her.You really do want to give Slade the benefit of the doubt, and the entire time up until the end, I was suspecting that they were totally wrong about him and that his eccentric behavior was meant to throw the viewer off the track. He's a very sympathetic character, even though he wants to have sex with his brother and kills women about once a week(cast the first stone, as they say), and Cregar's performance is probably the best of his career, not to mention the fact he created one of the best villains of all time--sadly probably not as well known as it should be.This is mandatory viewing for you. Light the lantern, don your coat and cane, and make your way over the cobblestone streets. But, mind the fog.