The Lodger (1944) Online

The Lodger (1944) Online

In late Victorian London, Jack the Ripper has been killing and maiming actresses in the night. The Burtons are forced to take in a lodger due to financial hardship. He seems like a nice young man, but Mrs. Burton suspects him of being the ripper because of some mysterious and suspicious habits, and fears for her beautiful actress niece who lives with them.

Merle Oberon fell in love with the film's cinematographer, Lucien Ballard, and they married the following year. Because of facial scars Oberon sustained in a car accident, Ballard developed a unique light for her that washed out any signs of her blemishes. The device is known to this day as the Obie (not to be confused with the Off-Broadway award).

There is a real Black Museum (now called the Crime Museum) at Scotland Yard. It officially came into existence in 1875 and has a police inspector and a police constable assigned to official duty there. It is not open to the public, but can be visited by police officers from any of the country's police forces by appointment.

Laird Cregar's screen presence and performance created such a sensation that Twentieth Century-Fox planned to cash in on its find by putting him in similar roles in other productions. The first of these was Hangover Square (1945), which re-united director John Brahm, screenwriter Barré Lyndon and co-star George Sanders. The plans were cut short when Cregar had a fatal heart attack at the end of the year. Hangover Square would be released after his death.

George Sanders also played Inspector Warwick in the 1932 British version, but was uncredited.

The movie was later remade by 20th Century Fox as Man in the Attic (1953), starring Jack Palance as Slade. The remake was released under Fox's Panoramic Productions label. Barré Lyndon's screenplay was updated for the remake by Robert Presnell Jr., and Hugo Friedhofer's music score was also reused. The remake was shot on the same sets, and reused footage from this film of the London police pursuing Jack the Ripper through the streets and over the rooftops.

Shot in 1943, not released until 1944.

One of the first movies to have a point of view shot representing the killer's perception.

The sequence involving the killing of Annie Rowley was judged to be so well done that studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck ordered it placed at the beginning of the picture. Actress Helena Pickard's face was not shown so that it became a simple matter of re-dubbing the dialog so that she is addressed as "Katie."