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‘The Lodger’ to Move Back In
In a season full of remakes that either rehash or rip apart the originals, it is comforting to know that a few students of Hollywood greats still exist and are willing to pay proper homage to their mentors. Enter David Ondaatje who has announced a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Lodger, a tense psychological jaunt through the eyes of two main characters; a hardened police detective who must solve ghastly murders that he is considered a suspect in, and a paranoid landlady who is convinced her new lodger is the killer.
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In a season full of remakes that either rehash or rip apart the originals, it is comforting to know that a few students of Hollywood greats still exist and are willing to pay proper homage to their mentors. Enter David Ondaatje who has announced a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Lodger, a tense psychological jaunt through the eyes of two main characters; a hardened police detective who must solve ghastly murders that he is considered a suspect in, and a paranoid landlady who is convinced her new lodger is the killer.
The original Hitchcock version was released as a silent picture in 1927, and was billed as a fictional depiction of the infamous “Jack the Ripper” killings. Hitchcock based his version on a novel by Marie Adelaide Lowndes. Ondaatje, who has won 2 bronze medals at regional film festivals in NY and Columbus, OH, will bring his version to the present day, but based on his prior film Waiting for “Dr. MacGuffin(1998)” which was also based on early Hitchcock treatments, it is presumed he will produce the flick in his characteristic art/documentary format while staying true to the techniques of the original. Filming is said to begin in early 2007 in Los Angeles.
The original “Lodger (A Story of the London Fog)” was Hitchcock’s second or third foray into the medium, but it was the first suspense film he had created. The master of the suspense thriller was only 27 when he made the original film and was quoted as telling François Truffaut that this was his first “true” film. He pushed the limits of the re-telling of the novel adaptation by forcing his killer to truly be Jack the Ripper. This film also represented the first time Hitchcock made a cameo appearance in one of his films. An actor who was supposed to play a reporter was a no show for the shoot, so the director can be seen at a typewriter in a room of reporters working on articles. He apparently enjoyed the experience because in one of the closing scenes he can be seen again leading the crowd beating the “Lodger”.