Laird Cregar established himself as one of Hollywood’s leading character players from his first film role in Hudson Bay, with that great charisma, speaking voice and presence. This was his first starring vehicle, and remains the film for which he is perhaps best remembered.
He plays the title role – unlike Ivor Novello in the Hitchcock version of the same tale, the Lodger actually is the Ripper. He is very effective – though, to be honest, he acts fairly guiltily from the get-go. No wonder they suspect him of the crimes.
Cregar was a homosexual and you could do a gay reading of this film – the lodger hates women, he caresses lovingly a picture of his “brother”. Actually, come to think of it, it’s hard to do a straight reading of it, what with Cregar’s agonies, effeminate nature and soulful eyes. He has a great death scene: surrounded by coppers (a la Frankenstein’s monster), eyes bulging, gripping his knife, he snaps and plunges into the river. The body is never found… had this been made by Universal surely there would have been a sequel.
Merle Oberon is okay as the female lead – she doesn’t have much charisma, and acts like she’s the prettiest girl in high school, but she is pretty, and even does the can-can. Her character is quite stupid, refusing to think Cregar is weird despite him going on these long monologues (though to be fair she doesn’t know she’s in a horror film but we do.)
George Sanders is the detective on the case. Making this film, I wonder if Cregar wondered “if Sanders can play romantic leads why can’t I – he’s no better looking than me, has played a lot of villains, and has that silky voice… all I need to do is diet.” And so he did diet, with fatal consequences.
Like The Undying Monster (another film directed by John Brahm, teamed with this on a DVD) this has lovely period detail and excellent Lucien Ballard photography. It has a stronger script and cast. According to the making of doco featurette on the DVD, Daryl Zanuck requested an effective murder sequence that happens during the film be put at the beginning.
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