Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Steineded How sad is this?

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

edwagreen Jack the Ripper is at it again in last century England and there is fright throughout the land as depicted in this nice 1944 film.While it becomes quite obvious who the culprit is, it is amazing that the owners of the house where the fiend lived didn't realize it instantaneously.This is also a psychological thriller in that it attempts to explain why the Ripper began his evil pursuit of women involved with being on the stage so as to justify the deterioration of his brother by such a woman and this resulted in his first murder.Was that really Merle Oberon singing? Cedric Hardwicke is completely unrecognizable as her uncle. If it weren't for his voice, I'd never know that this was him. Sara Allgood as her aunt is caught up in this, but she never attained the greatness she achieved in her 1941 supporting Oscar nomination bid for "How Green Was My Valley."

bsmith5552 "The Lodger" is considered by many to be the best of the several attempts to film the Jack the Ripper legacy. Much of the credit for this has to be attributed to the bravura performance by Laird Cregar in the lead role.Directed by John Brahm and photographed by Lucien Ballard we get a superior Gothic horror film complete with dimly lit foggy London streets with elements of "The Picture of Dorion Gray", Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "The Phantom of the Opera" thrown in. To appease the censors, the murder victims were changed from prostitutes to dance hall girls and all of the murders take place off screen.A mysterious man who calls himself "Slade" (Cregar), rents rooms from a down on their luck couple the Warwicks (Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Sara Allgood) at the time of the Jack the Ripper killings. The couple have a young niece Kitty Langley (Merle Oberon) who performs in music halls.Slade leaves little doubt as to who he really is and Cregar plays him as a soft spoken man with sinister overtones. Brahm has him photographed from low angles (a la Sidney Greenstreet) to emphasize his threatening size and piercing eyes. (Cregar was a big man standing over six feet and weighing 300 lbs).When the latest murder turns out to be a woman who had just met Kitty, Scotland Yard is called in with Inspector John Warwick (George Sanders) in charge. Naturally he is attracted to the lovely Kitty as is, we are soon to learn, Slade.The climax, which takes place following Kitty's performance, is the highlight of the film. Cregar's transformation into the mad murderer is positively frightening. This picture made a star out of the talented Cregar who went on to film a sequel of sorts the following year in "Hangover Square".If you pay attention closely, you will discover (due to last minute editing and voice over) that one lady is actually murdered twice.

bkoganbing Circumstances have forced the Bunting family to take in The Lodger at the same time in 1888 that the notorious Jack The Ripper was terrorizing all of London, particularly in the Whitechapel District where the Buntings reside. It should have made them think twice about taking in a boarder who is a complete stranger.Speculation about the Ripper murders has had professional and amateur criminologists going for years. There is no definitive work on Jack The Ripper because his identity is officially unknown. The Lodger is a work of novelist Maria Belloc Lowndes and her speculation is as good as anyone's including mine.What she did do and what 20th Century Fox did as well is give a great role to Laird Cregar, sad to say his next to last. Cregar is a mysterious medical student whose nocturnal wanderings have everyone wondering. Who's wondering most of all is Scotland Yard Inspector George Sanders.The Buntings, Cedric Hardwicke and Sara Allgood, think nothing of him at first, but his attentions to their actress daughter Merle Oberon are creeping them out. Not to mention the unease that she is slowly feeling around Cregar.Director John Brahm got some great performances out of his cast and really caught the mood of Victorian London. But Cregar will arouse all kinds of conflicting emotions in you. You will hate, loath, and pity him all at once, not an easy thing for an actor to maintain, but Cregar pulls it off. The Lodger is a remake of a film young Alfred Hitchcock did as a silent. They're both good, but I give the edge to this one.

rose-294 Based on the 1912 novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes (expanded from her short story), this third and best version of Lodger easily beats the earlier efforts - yes, including the silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The lushly produced, atmospheric film, written by play-writer Barre Lyndon, produced by Darryll F. "Gone with the wind" Zanuck and directed by German-born John (Hans) Brahm, Fox's 1944 Lodger is excellent Gaslight Gothic. It is set in fascinating, romantic milieu that unfortunately existed only in the movies - 1940's Hollywood version of Victorian London, complete with the opulent interiors, black and white photography, clean streets and clean-mouthed, literate dialogue, stalked by the murderer who is now called Jack the Ripper (not the Avenger, like in the novel and earlier film versions). Laird Cregar is sexually troubled lodger suspected as dirty deeds and despite his hate toward women, he is sympathetic just as the poor "actresses" he kills - more a troubled, tortured soul than your everyday sleazy misogynist. Merle Oberon is the pure and pretty heroine, a dance-hall actress and can can dancer, and George Sanders is the Scotland Yard detective. A classic.