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.
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.