This third film by Alfred Hitchcock was his first thriller. It is also the earliest of Hitchcock’s films to have been released on DVD home video. This inspired account of a Jack-the-Ripper-style murderer named “The Avenger,” who kills blond-haired women on Tuesday nights in London, shows a young and creative directorial talent at work.

Hitchcock worked from his own scenario of star Ivor Novello’s stage play for this initial foray into what would later be familiar Hitchcock territory. Novello portrays a strange and aloof lodger, who stays in a room above a lower-middle-class family. In the evening streets of London, the Avenger’s victims are being found closer and closer to the lodging houses. Eventually the landlords, and their daughter’s police detective suitor, come to suspect that the mysterious lodger has unholy designs on their beautiful blond daughter. Can their suspicions be confirmed before it is too late?

Throughout the film there are examples of visual inspiration in shots of a restless lodger in the room above pacing back and forth as seen, through the floor (as if eyes could read what ears are unable to hear in silent films), by the landlady below, or in the desperate lodger suspended only by handcuffs on a spiked metal fence. The Lodger is an early treat for fans of Hitchcock’s distinctive storytelling technique. We dare say that this film is his most entertaining and flashy narrative until 1929’s Blackmail. And, for those wondering, Hitchcock makes the first of his on-screen appearances, with Hitchcock sitting with his back to the camera in an early newspaper office sequence and as a flat-grey-hat wearing crowd member in the climax. — Carl Bennett

2001 Whirlwind Media edition

The Lodger (1926), black & white, 91 minutes, not rated, with Murder! (1930), black & white, 100 minutes, not rated.

Whirlwind Media, WDVD 2021, 6-88321-20212-1.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, one single-sided, dual-layered DVD disc, Region 0, 4.5 Mbps average video bit rate, 448 kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono and stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 14 chapter stops, keep case, $19.95.
DVD release date: 24 April 2001.
Country of origin: USA

This home video edition from Whirlwind Media was transferred from a 16mm reduction print, which appears to be the same 16mm Vintage Films print utilized by all the other budget home video editions of The Lodger. But we ask, why? Why bother making the best transfer available of a lousy print? 35mm prints of the film do exist. To stay within the production budget is the reason.

The edition’s opening credits consist of a series of still frames of the original film credits to extend their run time longer that of the abbreviated 16mm print. A still frame of the main title dissolves to the full-motion completion of the shot (the fan shape closing on the representation of the mysterious lodger), followed by a still frame of the production credits, the cast listing, and finally a still frame representation of the original British censorship certificate. Each still frame was created post-transfer so interlaced resolution lines will be detectable on standard and HD monitors. The credit title for Hitchcock’s direction is not represented here because the 16mm source print shows a brief glimpse of the title during a dissolve but is never fully or clearly rendered.

The video transfer is very good and runs at the proper speed but cannot to do anything to help the substandard 16mm print. The print’s flaws include soft image detail, some burnt out image highlights, tight cropping, speckling, frame jitters and brief sections of missing footage. The framing of the 16mm print has always been so tight that Malcolm Keen’s facial expression, 22:57 minutes into the film, is missed because his head is cut off by the tight framing. Most HD monitors will show all of the image area encoded into DVD, which will help here. Some sections of the print’s image indicate that the original source material for the 16mm reduction print was beginning to shrink, causing much of this print’s jumpiness. The motion and art intertitles are all represented, but digitally-reset title cards replace the original static dialogue intertitles.

A digitally-recorded but cobbled together music score of compositions by Stavinsky, Bizet, Debussy, Britten, Bartok, Saint-Saens and others is performed by several Russian musicians on pipe organ, piano and violin, and by a small chamber orchestra and small choir. The music is intelligently assembled but doesn’t always feel appropriate to the action. The editing is sometimes abrupt and tells unerringly of its piece-meal assembly.

Murder! (1930) is well-represented here, especially when compared to the DVD edition released by Madacy Entertainment. This Whirlwind edition features a video transfer with well-balanced graytones and open framing (the Madacy edition being quite tightly cropped). We have not seen the DVD edition of Murder! from Laserlight, but suspect that this Whirlwind edition is the best available on home video.

The DVD also includes a radio performance of The Lodger from 1940, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring previous Hitchcock actors Herbert Marshall and Edmund Gwenn who, like Hitch, had made their way professionally to America. The program was the premiere episode of the radio series Suspense. And, as in his films, Hitchcock makes a last-minute cameo appearance.

Rounding out the extras is a newsreel clip from 1930(?) of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt talking about letters from the New York state public. The clip’s duration is 1:48, not the 5:13 listed on the packaging. Also included is a Felix the Cat cartoon entitled Two-Lip Time (1926), which features an early synchronized soundtrack. The sparse ‘interactive chapter’ features a filmography (title and year), a descriptive listing of Hitchcock’s on-screen cameos, and a bibliography.

Is the content worth purchasing this DVD? For the price, yes. The transfer of Murder! is very good. The radio performance of The Lodger makes its first appearance on digital media. The other extras are OK. And even the transfer of the 16mm print of The Lodger is the best available on home video. But, damn, I am so weary of seeing the same low quality 16mm print on home video — see below! The Lodger is the major caveat in our recommendation of this disc, and it’s the chief reason for a silent film collector to purchase the disc.

All of this leads us to this closing appeal. There is a fine-quality 35mm print of The Lodger held by the British National Film Archive. A very-good quality video transfer has been prepared from the print by The Samuel Goldwyn Company but is compromised by tight picture cropping and a sound-speed transfer. Surely the film’s historical value alone cries for a better home-video version than those previously available. Somebody, please, (BFI, Kino, Kevin Brownlow or David Shepard, are you listening?) release the silent Hitchcock films in best-quality home video versions soon!

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

1999 Laserlight Digital edition

The Lodger (1926), black & white, 89 minutes, not rated, with Sabotage (1936), black & white, 76 minutes, not rated.

Laserlight Digital, 82035, UPC 0-18111-99753-9.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, one single-sided, dual-layered DVD disc, Region 0, 2.5 Mbps average video bit rate, 384 kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese language subtitles, 20 chapter stops, keep case, $7.95.
DVD release date: 20 July 1999.
Country of origin: USA

The Lodger remains one of our favorite silent era films despite the abysmal quality of all the home video versions (and there have been six) that we have seen. Among the videotape releases, the version of The Lodger from Hollywood Select Video has been, until recently, marginally better. That version suffers greatly from the substandard 16mm print from which the video transfer, which runs 95 minutes, was taken. (All home video versions appear to have been prepared from 16mm Vintage Films prints and are, subsequently, of low quality.) The picture is only fair on the Hollywood Select Video version, being of flat contrast and too dark in low light scenes (as in the miniature shot flashing “To-night GOLDEN CURLS” or of the downtown lighted news ticker) and for many of the intertitles. But the flat contrast does keep what few light area details are left in the lousy 16mm print from disappearing altogether.

Laserlight Digital’s DVD version of The Lodger (packaged with Hitchcock’s 1936 thriller Sabotage) is at times better than previous home video versions and at others worse. The chief difference is the higher contrast of the Laserlight video transfer (again, from a substandard 16mm print). Intertitles and dark scenes are easier to discern due to the extra light being pushed through the dark print. However, the contrasty transfer burns out light area picture details.

Ultimately, we favor the visual quality of the Whirlwind Media edition (above) of The Lodger over this Laserlight DVD edition. Despite the intrusiveness of some reset intertitles, the Whirlwind edition, which features better canned musical accompaniment, is a less laborious viewing experience than the Laserlight edition. Of Sabotage we can say that the Madacy edition features a slightly better picture than the Laserlight version here, with a better (i.e. flatter) tonal range and fewer compression artifacts. Whirlwind Media’s DVD release of The Lodger is the edition that we recommend. It is far from an ideal experience of The Lodger, but it is the best of several substandard home video editions taken from the same 16mm reduction print that is now available.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

2003 Brentwood Home Video edition

The Lodger (1926), black & white, 91 minutes, not rated, with The Ring (1927), black & white, 82 minutes, not rated, Blackmail (1929), black & white, 86 minutes, not rated, Juno and the Paycock (1929), black & white, 98 minutes, not rated, Rich and Strange (1932), black & white, 83 minutes, not rated, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), black & white, 78 minutes, not rated, Secret Agent (1936), black & white, 88 minutes, not rated, Sabotage (1936), black & white, 76 minutes, not rated, Young and Innocent (1937), 83 minutes, not rated, The Lady Vanishes (1938), 98 minutes, not rated, The Chaney Vase (1955), 25 minutes, not rated, and The Sorcerer’s Appentice (1961), 26 minutes, not rated.

Brentwood Home Video, 45011-9, UPC 7-87364-50119-9.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, five double-sided, single-layered DVD discs, Region 0, 4 Mbps average video bit rate, 384 kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 7 chapter stops, five-disc keep case, $19.98.
DVD release date: 7 October 2003.
Country of origin: USA

Another budget edition of Hitchcock’s The Lodger doesn’t bring any improvement for Hitch collectors. With framing, tonal quality and source print virtually the same as other DVD editions noted here, the only difference between this disc and its counterparts is value for the money. This collection pulls together ten Hitchcock films for yet another cheap DVD release. For dollars to the number of films, this is marginally a better value than the Laserlight edition.

The source material for The Lodger is the same Vintage Films 16mm reduction print that has been used for other DVD editions. The opening credits are nearly complete, with only Hitchcock’s title card missing, being barely visible in the beginning of a dissolve. The video transfer has done a slightly better job of holding a reasonable grayscale range, without going too contrasty. But the print is of low quality and makes viewing tough going. Since the Brentwood imprint is from the same BCI/Navarre company as did release the Navarre edition below, expect the two editions to be identical in visual quality.

The musical accompaniment is another annoying mish-mash of preexisting orchestral recordings of varying quality, and is presented in 2.0 mono and 5.1 mono — which is unlistenable due to a persistent series of audio drop outs. Annoying.

Many of the other films in this collection are presented in transfers that are slightly more contrasty than other available DVD editions. Read our review of the Brentwood edition of The Ring (1927).

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

2002 Navarre Corporation edition

The Lodger (1926), black & white, 80 minutes, not rated, with The Lost World (1925), color-toned black & white, 69 minutes, not rated, and The Eagle (1925), black & white, 81 minutes, not rated.

Navarre Corporation, 1631, UPC 7-41027-16319-3.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, one single-sided, dual-layered DVD disc, Region 1, 3 Mbps average video bit rate, 192 kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 6 chapter stops, keep case, $9.98.
DVD release date: 16 April 2002.
Country of origin: USA

Yet another DVD edition of The Lodger has utlized the same moderate-quality 16mm reduction print for its video transfer. The print is moderately contrasty, with soft image detail and gray but plugged-up shadows, light speckling, and some dust, splices, and emulsion chipping. The video transfer has been made at sound speed, which compromises Hitchcock’s pacing, and the framing is tight and sometimes crops the top of heads, but the intertitles are readable. This edition also passes the true test of any transfer from these 16mm prints, and that is the readability of the lighted news ticker at night that carries news of the Avenger’s latest murder. The presentation is accompanied by a canned orchestral soundtrack.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 1 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 1 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

Another budget edition of Hitchcock films renders nothing new, we suspect. Often, these low-budget editions are mastered from the same low-quality transfers as other cheapy companies. You might expect that this edition of The Lodger looks about the same as the others noted above. We would love to be wrong, but that’s unlikely. The set also includes an unidentified Hitchcock radio appearance, Hitchcock trailers, and a (probably brief and bad) Hitchcock documentary, all possibly lifted from other cheap editions.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

Other British silent era films available on DVD home video:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1912-1921)
A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929)
Electric Edwardians: The Lost Films of Mitchell & Kenyon (1900-1906)
Hindle Wakes (1927)
The Informer (1929)
Livingstone (1925)
Moulin Rouge (1928)
Piccadilly (1929)
The Return of the Rat (1929)
The Woman He Scorned (1929)