The lodger : a story of the London fog / Michael Balcon and Carlyle Blackwell, by arrangement with C.M. Woolf, present ; scenario, Eliot Stannard ; produced by Gainsborough Pictures ; directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Downhill / C.M. Woolf and Michael Balcon present ; directed by Alfred Hitchcock ; produced by Gainsborough Pictures ; scenario, Eliot Stannard.
Edition:
[Blu-ray version]. Special edition.
Publisher:
The Criterion Collection,
Copyright Date:
2017
Description:
1 videodisc (91 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 folded insert.
Container of (work): Lodger (Motion picture : 1927) Container of (work): Downhill (Motion picture) Container of (work): Lodger (Radio play)
Notes:
Title from title frame. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1927. Based on the novel by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes. "A restoration by the BFI National Archive in association with ITV Studios Global Entertainment, Network Releasing and Park Circus Films"--Opening screens. 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Includes the 1927 silent Hitchcock film, Downhill, also known as When boys leave home: Public schoolboy Roddy Berwick is expelled from school when he takes the blame for a friend's theft and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures. Special features: Downhill, director Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 feature film starring Ivor Novello, in a 2k digital restoration with a new piano score by Brand; new interview with film scholar William Rothman on Hitchcock's visual signatures; The Bunting House: new video essay by art historian Steven Jacobs about Hitchcock's use of architecture; excerpts from audio interviews with Hitchcock by filmmakers François Truffaut (1962) and Peter Bogdanovich (1963); radio adaptation of The Lodger from 1940, directed by Hitchcock; new interview with Brand on composing for silent film; essays (in insert) on The Lodger and Downhill by critic Philip Kemp. The Lodger: Ivor Novello, Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, June, Malcolm Keen.
Summary:
"With his third feature film, The Lodger: a Story of the London Fog, Alfred Hitchcock took a major step toward greatness and made what he would come to consider his true directorial debut. This haunting silent thriller tells the tale of a mysterious young man (matinee idol Ivor Novello) who takes up residence at a London boardinghouse just as a killer known as the Avenger descends upon the city, preying on blonde women. The film is animated by the palpable energy of a young stylist at play, decisively establishing the director's formal and thematic obsessions. In this release, The Lodger is accompanied by Downshill, another silent from 1927 that explores Hitchcock's "wrong man" trope, also headlined by Novello--making for a double feature that reveals the master of the macabre as he was just coming into his own"--Container.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.