Rescued by Rover (1905)
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The Lodger (1926)[Production Company: Piccadilly Productions. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Screenwriter: Elliot Stannard. Cinematographer: Gaetano di Ventimiglia. Editor: Ivor Montagu. Cast: Marie Ault (Mrs Bunting), Arthur Chesny (Mr Bunting), June (Daisy Bunting), Malcolm Keen (Joe Betts), Ivor Novello (The Lodger).] Although officially Hitchcock’s third feature, the director himself preferred to refer to The Lodger as his first proper film. Indeed, it was his first suspense thriller, a genre he went on to make his own with more world-famous films such as Vertigo (1958 US) and Psycho (1960 US). It also stands out as the film that drew attention to him as a prominent film-maker whose approach was for a long time difficult to categorise. In fact, with films like The Lodger, Hitchcock began to shape new categories and drew on a wide range of cinematic and broader cultural influences, from German expressionism to the psychoanalytical work of Sigmund Freud. Moreover, The Lodger was responsible for introducing a range of what were quickly to become classic Hitchcockian themes, for as Robert Murphy has pointed out: ‘What makes the film so fascinating is the way it dissolves into pre-echoes of Hitchcock’s later work.’ (in Pym 2003: 691) Issues of gender struggle and questions about guilt, suspicion and redemption are all wrapped up in an engrossing yarn that encompasses violence, romance, chase scenes and moments of raw emotional intimacy. Adapted from a successful novel by Marie Belloc, the film re-interprets and offers a solution to the story of infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper and re-imagines the seedier parts of London in the nineteenth century. (1) After an initial sequence that makes clear that the killer known by his calling card as ‘The Avenger’ has just committed another murder, and that his victims are all blonde young women, the film then introduces the working-class Bunting family who run a typical lodging house in a grimy impoverished part of the city. This family centres around Mr and Mrs Bunting (Arthur Chesny and Marie Ault), the elderly and devoted parents of aspiring model Daisy (played by an actress known only as ‘June’), but also includes Daisy’s would-be suitor, police detective Joe Betts (Malcolm Keen). A little later, the detectives who have been assigned to work on the notorious case deduce that the pattern of murders appears to be moving towards the very same lodging house, and the mysterious lodger (Ivor Novello) who arrived there a day after the seventh murder and who was absent from the house at exactly the time the eighth was committed nearby, is held under suspicion. Meanwhile, Daisy and The Lodger fall in love, much to the concern of her parents and the great discontent of Joe, who then turns the murder case into a personal vendetta and a quest to reclaim his damaged masculine pride. The compelling story of The Lodger benefits from a carefully crafted plot, in which twists and turns keep audiences guessing about the identity and motivation of the protagonist until the very end. It does so with very few intertitles, relying deliberately instead on the power of the cinematic image and the melodramatic performance style of its actors. (2) Such suspicion of dialogue (intertitled or otherwise), which was part of a general concern Hitchcock shared with film-makers like F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, around the introduction of synchronised sound to what had until then primarily been a visual medium. There was a logic to their resistance to change in that they, like Chaplin and Eisenstein, feared that sound would adversely affect the possibilities of film-making and make audiences lazier in their consumption of films. As Duguid notes, ‘the limitations of silent cinema meant that directors were forced to be imaginative in using images to convey dialogue and effects’ (3), and many were afraid that such creativity would be lost if the addition of sound were made possible. In any case, The Lodger shows Hitchcock’s mastery of (silent) film technique in his use of a wide variety of camera techniques and props to communicate the emotions of the various characters. He also deploys a frugal yet strategic placement of intertitles to announce characters, break up the narrative, and to add to the sense of mystery. Perhaps an even greater sign of cinematic sophistication is the staging of much of the plot in the narrow, multi-level boarding house which allows characters on different storeys to be seen interacting with the plot simultaneously. On a narrative level, the film is also quite complex. It moves towards a memorable finale, in which quick cuts between frames from different angles follow The Lodger as he is chased by a bloodthirsty mob. Just before this, a short but effective flashback sequence from The Lodger’s tragic past allows Daisy and the audience privileged access to the motivation for his strange behaviour and his air of melancholy. The opening sequence, using an almost expressionistic style with quirky tilt angles and shadows, sets the mood of a city terrorized by a mysterious killer. Indeed, as Geoffrey Macnab points out, ‘the pleasure of the film lies less in its being about a serial killer per se than in its manipulation of audiences’ expectations and its evocation of mist-shrouded London streets.’ (2007: 11) This section incorporates frantic scenes in a newspaper office, printing office, and out on the streets as people clamour with a mix of fear and anticipation to read about the latest murder in their neighbourhood. Such images are intercut with others featuring catwalk models preparing themselves for work, and the transition from one activity to another is set up by the delivery of a note from the killer to the show that states he is on the lookout for a girl with golden curls. At first all seem to be blonde and hence all ideal targets for the killer, but as their peroxide wigs are removed, it is quickly revealed that only very few possess the features that might attract The Avenger. Such features, the ‘golden’ hair and translucent fair skin in particular, are exactly those that are on display again three decades later via Rear Window’s Lisa (Grace Kelly 1954), Vertigo’s Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak), Psycho’s Marion (Janet Leigh) and The Birds’ Melanie (Tippi Hedren 1963). In fact, the idea of a constructed and idealised, yet threatening female identity that is so clearly explored by those later films is pre-echoed in The Lodger by the reference to wigs, make-up and costume, the display of young models, and the playful use of fake dark hair by one of the fair-haired girls to try to outwit the killer. Indeed, while critics continue to debate whether Hitchcock was uncomfortable with and hostile to women, or whether he admired them, it is clear that, as Mark Duguid points out, ‘Hitchcock saw female sexual vulnerability as a powerful dramatic device, which he exploited ruthlessly.’ (4) The supposed villain of the piece is portrayed with some ambivalence: the initial careful framing of The Lodger’s face makes him appear menacing and mysterious, while later on he looks vulnerable and victimised. The direct, frontal angle which shows only part of his head as the rest is sheltered from the cold by a thick scarf, adds to the piercing and mesmeric nature of his eyes, his ghostly, translucent skin and sharply contrasting dark hair, all of which make him appear quite monstrous at first. Moreover, his unexpected arrival at the Buntings’ lodging house is prefigured by a flickering and inexplicable extinction of the kitchen gas lamp, and a frenzied malfunction of the family’s cuckoo clock. As Mrs Bunting opens the door, The Lodger seems to appear from the fog itself, creating a memorably chilling moment that sets the tone for the assumptions that are made about this tragic stranger, until it is almost too late. In fact, The Lodger’s eccentric appearance and behaviour have more to do with his upper-class background, but are misunderstood by the Buntings and Joe as evidence of his deviance. All this helps generate the tone of suspense by which Hitchcock’s work was later defined. The sinister way in which The Lodger turns round all the paintings of women on the walls of his room and then insists that they are removed sets up questions about who he is, where he has come from and what his intentions might be which are left unanswered for the majority of the film. The shaking of the kitchen lamp as he paces above, and the use of a transparent ceiling/floor to allow the audience to see his feet as they walk up and down, heighten the effect of anxiety. Moreover, the very timing of his arrival to coincide with the hysterical reporting of the seventh murder, and his absence from the boarding house while the eighth is committed only deepens the effect of suspicion within the diegesis and for the audience. Could this man really be the Avenger lurking within their very midst? And yet, his tenderness towards Daisy and her absolute faith in his integrity leads to further uncertainty. On another level, this is also a film about patriarchy and Joe's assumed ownership of Daisy as his fiancée-to-be. While he appears to assume a right to become her husband, he also seems to realise that he needs to prove himself to her. She seems less than impressed by his early attempts to woo her, and downright insulted when he sadistically handcuffs her to the staircase while The Lodger watches. He appears to have the approval of Daisy’s parents but has not won her heart. Will his attempts to apprehend the Avenger impress her sufficiently? Her rebuttal of his advances and rejection of his proposal send him into a jealous rage, especially when he catches her playing chess with The Lodger in his room, and later finds them locked in amorous embrace. His determination to win her back becomes entangled with a parallel obsessive quest to capture the murderer and to remove or destroy the threat to his macho sense of self. All the classic Hitchcockian issues of gender and class difference, fetishistic sexuality, misunderstanding and mistaken identity surface in this gripping silent drama that shows a maturity of style and tone. It oscillates between suspense and humour, fear and tenderness, and demonstrates the young director’s growing confidence in using cinema to connect emotionally with an audience. At this stage, however, Hitchcock did not have as much control over his work as he would later enjoy. It has been reported that he would have preferred to construct a more ambiguous ending to The Lodger’s narrative, but the British studio involved wouldn't allow the suggestion that The Lodger might actually be the murderer to be confirmed. (5) Nevertheless, the film, like its originating story, caught the public imagination and marked the start of the career of one of the British film industry’s greatest directors. Notes
Further Reading Geoffrey Macnab, ‘Still making a killing’, Independent, 4 May 2007, p. 10-11. Robert Murphy, ‘The Lodger’, in John Pym, Time Out Film Guide 2004, London, Penguin, 2003, p. 691. Amy Sergeant, British Cinema: A Critical History, London, BFI, 2005. François Truffaut, Hitchcock, London, Simon & Schuster, 1985. Sarah Barrow
I don’t think I’d ever have left Piccadilly if it hadn’t been for China. This exchange of middle-aged male reminiscence appears not in E. A. Dupont’s original silent film, but in the prologue to the later sound version. A studio-inspired plot leader, it is designed to introduce some modernity by ‘beefing up’ verbally the narrative of the original, an essentially stereotypical tale of eternal triangles, centred on a Chinese scullery maid turned exotic dancer, whose charms seduce both the audience of the Piccadilly nightclub, and the European club owner. But the perfunctory nature of this dialogue trail, coupled with its ambiguous re-establishment of the safer comforts of a rural British retreat –‘I’ve got my flowers, dog, fishing, plenty of sleep’- serves only to point up the seductions attached to the peril of stepping out with China, and so out of assigned colonial role in race, class, and gender. Dupont’s silent Piccadilly so powerfully represents such seductions and perils that its impact has never been lukewarm. Its initial reception in 1929 had audiences entranced by the new star, and was critically acclaimed as a potential saviour of the British film industry from over-Americanisation. But this was tempered by suggestions that the sparkling cinematography over-shadowed the plot, and by some still familiar questioning whether such a ‘Europudding’ production, with its German director, could be considered ‘British’, or whether, on the contrary, its American-Asian stars constituted brave internationalism, a canny following of Hollywood’s lucrative world inclusiveness. A period of obscurity for the film followed, with American product seemingly unassailable and an often poor critical opinion of British film. The film’s present revival has, ironically, re-asserted its status as saviour of the national reputation, as a re-discovered gem of early British cinema. (1) Piccadilly’s release in 1929 is significant, at the end of more than a decade of silent film, grown confident in its use of light and camerawork, but facing the coming of the ‘talkie’ and of colour. Critics such as Robert Keser point to the extraordinary bunching of masterworks of European cinema in that last year of silents (2), and Piccadilly belongs to this crucial moment: still firmly rooted in the visually imaginative, it is, like others in the second half of the 1920s, taken by its German émigré director towards a more realist mode, bringing social commentary to the narrative. The storyline concentrates on the eruption of China into Piccadilly in the form of Chinese American Anna May Wong, playing a scullery maid whose Oriental dancing eclipses that of the old-style European bill-toppers, and who also supplants the female lead in the club owner’s affections; a clash between youth and age as well as East and West. The role thrust Wong to celebrity, launching a career that vacillated between success in Europe, and returns to Hollywood and disappointment at Paramount’s cautious use of her ‘problematic’ status. Karen Leong (3), outlining this negotiation of her dual identity in dual geographies and cultures, has commented that European and United States audiences both cast an ‘essentialising’ gaze on Wong’s Chinese identity. Leong has traced Wong’s use of the British film industry to replace the more racist limitations of her efforts in America, maintaining a negotiation of British press and industry attitudes that insisted on her outer ‘Chineseness’ yet simultaneously expressed surprise at her American ‘flapper’ modernity. Anna May Wong’s own perception of her racial identity and her performance of it was shifting and complex. While making use of a more open European industry she viewed with increasing frustration her stereotypical roles as instrumental in maintaining the Asian status quo. Leong points out that in most of her starring appearances she is a killer and/or is killed, or her suicide makes way for the happiness of white heroines. Nevertheless, in Europe visiting 'exotic' celebrities, such as Anna May Wong became, were linked not with low status workers but with exotic entertainers, often ones who as part of their act performed their own ‘otherness’ for the fascination of white Europeans. This performance of ‘orientalness’ for white consumption forms a key element of Wong’s role as Shosho in Piccadilly. Yiman Wang (4) argues that her performance here, and in all the various Asian ethnicities she portrayed in the 20s and 30s, can be compared to the Negro practice of ‘black blackface’ performance, in which mixed race performers ‘black-up’ to become indistinguishable from fully Negro actors, succeeding in both underlining and undermining the racial content of their appearance and roles. Wang points to a continual critical underrating of the extent of Anna May Wong’s performance, describing it as ‘yellow yellowface,’ a deliberate performed excess of the racial stereotype, designed to both play to the desires for exotic ‘other’ of the white audience, and, in its ironic excess, to expose the orientalised nature of both her image and its narrative role, often as seductress, betrayer and ultimately violent destroyer; all of which can be seen in Piccadilly. Wang identifies a crucial moment when Shosho takes club owner Valentine into oriental Limehouse to buy her dance costume. She manoeuvres her Chinese lover, Jim, into modelling the scanty dress, a role he undercuts by looks and gestures, while Shosho displays her power, challenging ‘I dance in this or not at all’. Anna May Wong’s ‘screen passing’, in her ‘yellow yellowface’ performance, ironizes her Asian vamp, while Jim’s demeanour both recognises and deprecates the de-powering feminisation of his Asian and male role. (5) Such gendered and racial ironies are further complicated by Wong’s appearance and dress, orientalising both a Louise Brookesesque hairstyle and an androgynous flapper-look redolent of the ‘new woman’ emancipation overtaking European womanhood and already generating, through the vamp figure, the kind of male anxieties which would later emerge as the femme fatales of film noir. The overlapping triangles of desire centre on the two women’s conflict, and are expressed visually and bodily, often through their dance scenes which allow the diegetic and the cinema audience a vaudeville spectacle. While Anna May Wong’s presence has always gripped public and critical attention, the spectacular aspects of Dupont’s filming, for which he was celebrated in the 1920s, are crucial to these dynamics and to Piccadilly’s effects. Dupont’s earlier work in Germany, especially in his 1925 hit, Varietie, had been well received and was critically twinned with Murnau’s The Last Laugh for its technical skill and modernity in virtuoso camerawork and sparkling mise-en-scene. This can be found in Piccadilly, as in the opening interior Club scene full of myriad lights, twinkling glasses in mirrored reflections and refractions. But Piccadilly also displays a more muted realism: critics such as Richard McCormack (6) see in Dupont’s work an early example of a social critique being fully integrated into the narrative, with visual excess and realism working together. This mix can be seen in the key dance scenes. Star attractions Mabel and Vic make synchronised sweeps down dual staircases while the camera cuts between their somewhat dated hoofing (7) to track round their audience in a swirl of concentrated eyes and looking positions, which are both visually arresting, but also fully contained within the realism of their audience viewing role . Significantly for Mabel’s later eclipse this first dance is interrupted by emanations from Shosho’s scullery, taking club owner Valentine downstairs to be enthralled by his, and our, first glimpse of the spectacle of Shosho’s mesmerising languorous dance. The camera mirrors its earlier tracking of the Club audience, but now lingering on the faces of scullery staff, puts focus on this lowest social order. Through her seduction of Valentine, Shosho gains access to both worlds, becoming our, and (briefly) Valentine’s, entry into a double underclass in the Limehouse society, which she pointedly sets against his upper class and location, stating ‘This is our Piccadilly’. In the last dance scene the emphasis is more fully on Limehouse. Valentine is taken by Shosho for his final visit, to a pub, where the shot introducing the bar forms a clear mirroring of the introductory one in the ‘Piccadilly’ Club: a spectacular tracking shot of hands lining up glasses ready for more hands to take them. But in Limehouse this is allowed an erotic outcome as Valentine’s hand covers Shosho’s. (8) The now familiar track around the audience follows, but here they are not viewing a specific spectacle; instead this shot is deliberately focused in a lingering close-up on the faces of the Limehouse workers with an almost Vertovian sense of record. Attention shifts to a drunken white woman whose subsequent dancing with a Negro leads to alarm, and her ejection, to the discomfort of Shosho and Valentine, a similarly mixed-race couple. Limehouse functions as the darker side of Piccadilly; a reminder that, when genders are disturbed and there is some looking back at the gaze on otherness, violence can follow. Dupont’s emphasis on audience and looking displays a self-consciousness made more intense by his use of modernist techniques which critics such as Peter J Hutchings have described in relation to Hitchcock’s films. (9) Dupont’s film, too, shows an intense modernist interest in the relations between visuals, and the use of words as visual display as well as givers of information. Newspapers, in particular, feature constantly as headlines or used as props. When Shosho wakes to find herself famous the newspaper report is conveyed by her lover Jim in a scene of naturalness which contrasts and complicates her ‘fiendish vamp’ act with Europeans. Covering Jim’s head with the newspaper, she bends to kiss his hidden lips, and then moves away; the paper slips to reveal his rapture, focused again on eyes, this time closed. In a combination of word and image it economically conveys her gain as his potential loss, and a slipping away of innocence which undercuts the later stereotypical outcomes. The same use of words for both information and visual objects closes the film once the triangles have been resolved through a double eradication of the disruptions of China. Newspaper headlines reveal the plot's bluff in announcing the trial’s outcome; in a circular return, the modernity of the city re-asserts itself, focusing ironically on a passing billboard proclaiming ‘Life Goes On’. So the technologies of modernity both produce stylistic excess and cover over it, word images not quite suturing the unresolved ruptures which would not have been raised ‘if it hadn’t been for China’. Notes
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