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If You Like ‘Arlington Road’ Why Not Try ‘The Lodger’

When it comes to making a certain type of thriller then every film director walks in a huge shadow, a shadow which in fact has it’s own theme music. Ladies and Gentlemen; Mr. Hitchcock has entered the building.

Because of the scale of his legacy and the number of classic films he made it’s all too easy to forget that Alfred Hitchcock began his career with silents, starting as a title designer in 1920 and working his way up to directing his first films in 1926. He directed a total of ten silents between 1926 and 1929, his final one being ‘Blackmail’ which he also made as a talkie simultaneously. ‘The Lodger’ was not Hitchcock’s first film, that was ‘The Pleasure Garden’ (1926), but it can certainly be seen as the first ‘Hitchcock film’, the first one we would all recognise as the work of the master. It contains many of the themes and techniques that would later become synonymous with Hitchcock; a wrongly accused man, dumb policemen, jet black comedy, skewed camera angles, montage, a sly bondage gag, religious imagery, sexual titillation, a man hanging over a drop, the big climax and of course blondes. The story of this first Hitchcock film revolves around a serial killer fixated on blonde women (an idea not in the book on which the film is based but introduced by Hitchcock himself), it’s almost a shame that this wasn’t his first film because really there would have been no more appropriate note on which to begin his career.

It is also with ‘The Lodger’ that Hitchcock first stakes claim to being the Master of Suspense, this is a film which is all about suspense and it is for this reason that I have chosen to contrast it with ‘Arlington Road’. I considered using a more modern take on the serial killer film such as ‘Se7en’ or ‘Silence of the Lambs’ but those, and most other modern serial killer films, focus more on the police hunting the killer and so make for interesting comparisons but have little in common. The police are almost never the centre of attention in Hitchcock films, they are usually background characters and are portrayed as stupid and useless. Hitchcock himself had an almost pathological fear of policemen stemming from being locked in a cell as a child (his father wanted to teach him a lesson). In the end what ‘The Lodger’ is about is not so much the broader dangers of a serial killer being loose, but the possibility of the killer being close to home, endangering family. As with most Hitchcock films it deals with everyday people in danger, making the situation all the easier to empathise with. ‘Arlington Road’ has the same basic idea, it deals with a terrorist rather than a serial killer but the drive of it is not that he might commit an act of terrorism but that the lead’s family might be in danger. Both films ask a question, ‘Is this person what they seem?’ and then spend most of rest of the film building the tension before revealing the answer. The skill involved in doing this and keeping it interesting  and suspenseful for the viewer is what makes these films so good.

Both film’s set their mood from the first shot. ‘Arlington Road’s woozy opening is immediately disturbing and a sudden shock makes it frightening as well, it also sets the theme of innocence in danger as Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges) saves his neighbour’s son. ‘The Lodger’ opens with a close up of a girl screaming, followed by a title repeating across the screen ‘TONIGHT GOLDEN CURLS’. It’s creepy refrain sounding salacious but also disturbing when coupled with the image. By opening with a murder Hitchcock draws us straight in and then, with consummate skill, sets about getting the background across as swiftly and interestingly as possible. Using the passage of the story from murder scene to newsprint and general public as a device, Hitchcock lets us know that this is the seventh murder by a serial killer who leaves a calling card identifying himself as the Avenger, we get a description (that we will immediately recall when Ivor Novello first appears), we learn that he targets curly haired blondes and, most importantly, we get some idea of the sort of mass hysteria this is causing, the sort that is bound to lead to suspicion. Background information is of similar importance in ‘Arlington Road’ Michael’s history, his wife was an FBI agent killed because of bad information, is what makes him hyper suspicious and also what holds him back from going to the police, he mistrusts the government. Hitchcock also establishes a theme of sex (in as much as he can in 1926), heroine Daisy (played by June, her full name was June Howard-Tripp but she went by June, it’s not quite Madonna but points for trying) works as a mannequin, showing clothes to prospective buyers, and we have a scene in the changing rooms to establish the fear all younger women are feeling (one uses a dark brown hairpiece). This is one area where the films differ, there is relatively little in ‘Arlington Road’ that could be described as sexual, but it is typical of Hitchcock.

Swiftly we move on to meet our respective suspects. Here too the films differ slightly, Michael’s neighbours Oliver and Cheryl Lang (Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack) are fairly normal when we meet them, there is little immediate suggestion of anything wrong about them. Ivor Novello (the lodger never has a name he is simply the lodger) could not be introduced in a more ominous way. Hitchcock had recently been in Germany, working at the great UFA studios, able to observe the likes Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau at work. The experience had a profound affect on him (more than almost any other director Hitchcock absorbed the techniques of others and honed them for his own use) and ‘The Lodger’ is shot through with expressionist imagery, none better than Novello’s introduction; white faced and dark eyed, the bottom half of his face swathed in scarves he is framed in the doorway. There is a probable reason for these two very different introductions which I’ll come to later. From here on the stories develop in similar ways, Hitchcock uses visual suggestions to make us more and more suspicious of the lodger; he cannot look at the pictures of blonde girls on the walls of his room, he fingers a knife, is afraid of policemen, when he goes out at night there is a murder and, most disturbingly, he is clearly fixated with Daisy, and especially her hair. Our suspicions of Oliver grow more slowly, his normality becomes creepy and then other cracks start to appear in the façade. Or at least they seem to, we learn everything from Michael’s point of view and such is his fixation with terrorism that we take his opinions with a pinch of salt. In fact his girlfriend Brook (Hope Davis) does not believe anything is wrong, which is mirrored in ‘The Lodger’ as Daisy’s mother (Marie Ault) is very suspicious of the lodger while her father (Arthur Chesney) is unconvinced.

There is a definite difference in the playing of these roles as well, Tim Robbins is superb, managing to be chilling without really doing anything, Joan Cusack in a similar but smaller role also shines. Ivor Novello is fine but much of Hitchcock’s editing (he had also recently been influenced by the montage technique invented by Abel Gance and popularised by Russian directors such as Sergei Eisenstein) and use of expressionist angles was used to cover Novello’s rather limited acting (he was essentially a music hall star). Any sense of a disturbing individual we get from Novello stems more from director than actor. June is far better, though little is really required of the role, the bulk of the suspicion falls to Marie Ault who excellently conveys the fear of a mother for her daughter. Ault’s role is the equivalent of Michael  in ‘Arlington Road’ where the part is developed far more to make him the central character (which is interestingly what the mother’s role is in the original book of ‘The Lodger’). Jeff Bridges excels in the role, far more is called of him than Ault as he loses those he loves and his entire life unravels around him. Mention should also be made of Malcolm Keen who plays Daisy’s suitor, Joe, in ‘The Lodger’. It’s a reasonably thankless role but he does well as Hitchcock’s first clueless policeman who arrests the lodger, loses him, saves him and then completely vanishes from the final scenes. He provides a connection to the law for the family, so we can keep up to date with how far behind the Avenger that police are. Similarly in ‘Arlington Road’

Michael’s friend Whit (Robert Gossett), his wife’s old partner in the FBI, serves the same purpose.
As I have already touched on, both films make a conscious decision to bring the danger close to home. Firstly in terms of actual proximity, the lodger is a potential murderer in the house while the Lang family is just across the road. But mainly in terms of the threat to family, that the lodger may be a murderer is definitely a concern but his interest in Daisy is what really scares his landlord and landlady and what engages the audience. Daisy is a likeable character and we are genuinely fearful for her because Hitchcock builds the sense that the lodger’s interest in her is not entirely innocent. The best example of this is his going to see her, apparently to apologise, when she is in the bath, naked and vulnerable, it’s another early example of a classic Hitchcock scene. In ‘Arlington Road’ it is Michael’s young son, Grant, who is in danger, like Daisy, he is becoming close to the suspicious person, spending more and more time with the Lang family. It is fear for Grant’s safety that finally pushes Michael over the edge.

About halfway through these films take very different turns, in a way that largely explains why the two suspicious characters are introduced in such different ways. It’s doubtful that Novello was ever Hitchcock’s first choice, although he did like casting against type and Novello was the first in a line of homosexual romantic leads in his films. But Novello was a big star and probably helped make film a success, he came at a price however. Never would Hitchcock stick to the text of a book he was adapting so strongly as he did that of ‘The Lodger’, a novel by Maria Belloc-Lowndes, the book ended with the lodger probably (though not definitively) identified as the murderer and disappearing. It was not just the murderer escaping that bothered the front office, it was the suggestion of Novello being a killer, a suggestion they believed Novello’s massive female fan base would not accept. The picture would not go ahead without Novello, and with Novello in the part a happy ending was a necessity. With characteristic skill, Hitchcock and the other writers (including Alma Reville who would soon become Mrs. Hitchcock) changed the focus of the film and made the lodger so suspicious that his innocence is more shocking than his guilt would have been; a final act twist. They also came up with an excuse for his behaviour, one which would make him all the more sympathetic in the eyes of the audience. They did a good job but it is still a patch job, the excuse they came up with is more than a little implausible. Plus the original ending worked better and was the one that Hitchcock wanted to do, so much so in fact that remaking the film was a near permanent fixture on the director’s lengthy ‘to do’ list, and some of his other films (most notably ‘Frenzy’ (1972) his last truly great film) feel like surrogates, where he was able to do things his way.

‘Arlington Road’ is a very different story, for the first half of the film we learn everything through Michael, he is viewed as slightly crazy by people around him. Then, after he has more or less admitted he was wrong, Brook finds something out but is killed before she can tell Michael. Now we, the audience, know something that Michael does not and feel like screaming at the screen to let him know. Changing point of view like this is not a technique often used in films and it’s interesting to note that it’s another one pioneered by Hitchcock in one of his greatest films (and my personal favourite), ‘Vertigo’, in which we learn everything as Jimmy Stewart’s Scottie does until halfway through when we learn something he does not know. From this point on in ‘Arlington Road’, we have no question about whether or not Oliver is guilty, that is not the final act twist. The twist when it comes is far more shocking, the sort of thing Hitchcock himself would have loved, and provides a darker ending than even the original of ‘The Lodger’ would have been. It also involves the use of another well tried Hitchcock device, the Maguffin (basically something that distracts the audience from what is really happening) in this case a van that Michael is following during the final chase.

On the subject of the chase scenes with which both films climax, they are both excellent. Suspenseful, action packed and ending in tremendous catharsis; an explosion for ‘Arlington Road’ and the lodger’s rescue from a his position hanging from iron railing by his handcuffs as an angry mob bay for his blood.

In terms of technique both films again stand in good stead. ‘The Lodger’ has inevitably aged and the difference in quality between British and American films of the time is clear (it’s a money thing), but Hitchcock was always adept at making films on a budget and his mastery of the image more than makes up for any wobbly moments. And mastery is the word. Yes he was at the beginning of his career and yes he had better films to come, but watching ‘The Lodger’ it’s no surprise the tremendous boost his career received when it came out. We have already mentioned the expressionist touches but it’s worth noting the most innovative and the one that most points to this as being a silent film. The book emphasises the sound of the lodger’s feet as he paces the floor, and the family stare at the ceiling. Footsteps were not available to Hitchcock so he responds with a masterful shot in which the ceiling fades and we are left looking at Novello’s feet from beneath as he paces up and down. It is obviously achieved by having Novello walk on a sheet of glass but the simplicity hardly matters, the point is that few directors would have thought of it. Already Hitchcock was a great visual storyteller. Another great example of silent storytelling comes with the eighth murder, we see the girl scream, of course we cannot hear it but Hitchcock shows others doing so; a woman looks up, a cat runs away, a policeman turns around and we cut back to a shot of a man (the killer) walking quickly away. The murder told in a few simple images and without outraging the censor. Of course in the main ‘Arlington Road’ is a very different affair, it’s camera work is fast moving and occasionally handheld, contributing to the sense of urgency in it’s closing scenes and discomfort all the way through. But there are a couple of moments when Michael is at home alone at night when he is shot with a stark light on his face and the rest of the screen in total darkness, shots which heighten his isolation when no one will believe him. They have a definite expressionist look to them.

The other thing that definitely separates these movies is that ‘The Lodger’, like practically all of Hitchcock’s films, has a sense of humour. There is little or nothing to smile about in ‘Arlington Road’ while ‘The Lodger’ has moments of humour, sly gags and in jokes. The house number is number 13, Joe handcuffs Daisy as a joke which Hitchcock admitted to be a bondage reference. When Joe is talking about the lodger’s dislike of the pictures of girls in his room the title says ‘I’m glad he’s not keen on the girls’, though Novello’s homosexuality was not known to his fans it was an open secret within the industry and it’s hard to believe that Hitchcock wasn’t making a little joke. If one looks hard through the window in the final scene when the lodger and Daisy kiss then the film’s first title, the disturbing ‘Tonight Golden Curls’ can be seen like a neon sign on the building opposite. Finally, this is the first film in which the director makes one of his famous cameo appearances, unrecognisably young and with his back to the camera he is a newsman on a phone and also may appear in the mob chasing the lodger at the end. It’s possible however that this was not a joke (at this early stage of his career no one would have recognised him) and they were just short of extras that day.

VERDICT

When Hitchcock showed ‘The Lodger’ to the people in charge at the production Company, Gainsborough, it was a far more ‘artistic’ film than they had expected. They hated it and the film was shelved indefinitely. With the help of another film maker, Ivor Montagu, Hitchcock re-edited and re-shot bits of the film. This time it received a release and became possibly the single most outstanding British film of the silent era. It’s success made Hitchcock the most celebrated director in England and acknowledged master of this genre, a position he would not relinquish for almost fifty years. Seldom again would any producer dictate to him how his film had to end. But this one time it did happen.

For all it’s success, ‘The Lodger’ is marred by it’s ending, it is tough to swallow and massively weakens Novello’s character. By contrast the bold and perfectly conceived ending of ‘Arlington Road’ is one of it’s strongest points and credit should go to Mark Pellington for delivering on the dark promise of the rest of the film. His vision is intact, Hitchcock’s is compromised. It seems almost sacrilegious to even contemplate saying that any film is better than one made by Alfred Hitchcock, such is his reputation but, though ‘The Lodger’ is a great film and one well worth watching, it is not one of his best. ‘The Lodger’ is after all a film made by a man still learning the ropes, streets ahead of most of his contemporaries (largely thanks to his experience in Germany) but still with much to learn. This is Hitchcock the developing talent. ‘Arlington Road’ is one of the tightest and best constructed thrillers of recent years and one which has, tragically, only become more relevant with the passage of time. It’s formidable action sequences never dumb down it’s intelligence, but this intelligence never gets in the way of an ‘edge of your seat’ movie, it’s a fantastic film with strong performances, great direction and a killer twist at the end. It is the better film of these two.

Hitchcock knew the weaknesses of his film which is one of the reasons he so frequently tried to remake the story he loved, both literally and through other films. It’s notable that on the occasion he came closest he produced one of the best films not just of his career but of anybody’s. Film fans will already have recognised that there was one time when Hitchcock was able to make an everyday, man next door type into a serial killer, and also deliver a twist which leaves even that of ‘Arlington Road’ in the dust. The film of course was ‘Psycho’ (1960). ‘The Lodger’ can very definitely be seen as almost a dry run for ‘Psycho’, as if this were the point to which Hitchcock’s career was always leading, and that’s just one of the many reasons that make the silent worth watching.

If you have feedback, you can e-mail Robin here.

Copyright© 2007 Robin Bailes