Considering I have 23 of Alfred Hitchcock‘s films over on my shelf I just assumed I have seen his best works, but his 1927 picture The Lodger isn’t part of either of my collections and actually sounds quite interesting. The film is an adaptation of Marie Belloc Lowndes novel and is described as Hitch’s debut feature. It starred Marie Ault and Arthur Chesney as Mr. and Mrs. Bunting. In the film there is a killer on the loose murdering blonde women in London known as “The Avenger”. The Bunting’s rent a room to a mysterious man, whom their daughter (who is dating one of the detectives asssigned to the case and blonde of course) suspects may be the killer.
Word out of Variety is that the film will be remade with David Ondaatje directing Alfred Molina and Hope Davis from his own script, but there are a few changes that have been made, and they actually sound for the better. The new version will be set in present-day Los Angeles, has two converging plotlines: The first involves a cat-and-mouse game between a troubled detective (Molina) and an unknown killer; the second explores the relationship between an emotionally disturbed landlady (Davis) and her enigmatic “lodger.”
Shooting will begin next month in Los Angeles with Sony Pictures (probably Sony Classics) set to distribute.
