It’s time for another chapter of That Was Then, This Is Now, in which Chad Denton of The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and I take a look at Marie Belloc Lowndes’ novel, The Lodger, and some of the films adapted from it.
Warning: All three reviews plus the discussion that follows contain explicit spoilers of the novel and the films. Proceed at your own risk!
The Lodger (1927) at And You Call Yourself A Scientist!
The Lodger (1932) at And You Call Yourself A Scientist!
The Lodger (1944) at The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
The discussion….with special guest literary critic!
#1 by Blake Matthews on May 7, 2008 - 12:44 pm
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While I’m not convinced to track down/download the novel, the reviews made me feel that I need to watch some older Hitchcock films now. Good work.
#2 by lyzard on May 7, 2008 - 4:39 pm
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Yes, the novel is all premise, no story; but all of the films are worth a look.
The early Hitchcocks are also all worth a look, although as I say, there are a lot in there that these days seem rather anomalous. The Lodger stands out like a sore thumb amongst the early stuff. (Blackmail is the other one that has “the mark”, but the studio tampered with the ending.) When he gets to The Man Who Knew Too Much, though, you can almost hear the ‘CLICK’. I think The 39 Steps is a better film, though (at the time of TMWKTM, Hitch hadn’t quite mastered using comedy to heighten suspense, rather than dissipate it), and amongst its other pleasures, it has The Single Greatest Political Speech Ever Delivered. Seriously, just like the characters in the film, you’d vote for this guy in a second – if you got the chance.
#3 by Tom Meade on May 8, 2008 - 2:35 am
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Sabotage is also excellent. It has two of my favourite scenes from any Hitchcock, and really good performances by Oscar Homolka and Sylvia Sydney.
#4 by Blake Matthews on May 8, 2008 - 10:05 am
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I watched the original “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and enjoyed it. I had a good friend who always told me about The 39 Steps, so I’ll probably track that one down.
#5 by David on May 8, 2008 - 2:53 pm
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Definately track down The 39 Steps.
And then (it’s appearing all over the world), go and see the stage production. It is laugh out loud funny. I saw the Melbourne production last weekend, and had one of the best Theatre experiences in a long time. It is ingenius how four actors can play 130 characters, in 47 locations.
#6 by lyzard on May 8, 2008 - 4:42 pm
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I haven’t seen Sabotage for far too long. I also like Young And Innocent, although it’s a lot less serious. (I particularly like the scene where the man on the run from the law and in fear of his life can’t figure out a way to escape from the children’s party he’s been roped into helping out with!)
#7 by JessicaR on May 8, 2008 - 9:33 pm
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And I love, love, love The Lady Vanishes. What a fabulous movie.
#8 by Tom Meade on May 8, 2008 - 10:52 pm
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Michael Redgrave!
I like Michael Redgrave.
#9 by lyzard on May 8, 2008 - 11:06 pm
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The Lady Vanishes. Dead Of Night. The Dam Busters.
Whoa. Just….whoa.
#10 by Matthew Fudge on May 9, 2008 - 5:10 am
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Peter jackson’s company is remaking The Dambusters, which while it’s a great old movie with a cracking theme tune, is a little odd in this day and age. I wonder how many kids will see the end and complain that it’s just knocking off the destruction of the deathstar.
anyway, I digress.
#11 by The Rev. D.D. on May 12, 2008 - 10:19 am
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I love these examinations of films covering the same material. Very fascinating to me.
And, as a bonus, they mean plenty of work from our resident mad scientist.
Any chance you could direct us to the Gosford Park review you mentioned, Ms. Kingsley? I’m quite curious to read this thing now for some reason.
#12 by hman on May 24, 2008 - 8:04 am
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Just got done watching “The 39 Steps”. It was pretty good, although the sound quality on my copy was deplorable. But there were a lot of clever scenes and some good dialogue in it.