The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

For the opening of this movie, Sir Alfred Hitchcock wanted to show the Avenger's murder victim being dragged out of the Thames River at night with the Charing Cross Bridge in the background, but Scotland Yard refused his request to film at the bridge. Hitchcock repeated his request several times, until Scotland Yard notified him that they would "look the other way" if he could do the filming in one night. Hitchcock quickly sent his cameras and actors out to Charing Cross Bridge to film the scene, but when the rushes came back from the developers, the scene at the bridge was nowhere to be found. Hitchcock and his assistants searched through the prints, but could not find it. Finally, Hitchcock discovered that his cameraman had forgotten to put the lens on the camera before filming the night scene.

When The Lodger (Ivor Novello) and Daisy (June Tripp) are playing chess, but the board is set up inappropriately. The square in the right corner should always be white. In this case, the bottom-right square is dark (black). This is the most obvious when The Lodger (Ivor Novello) is poking the coals in the fireplace.

Closing credits: Thank you to everyone who supported the BFI's Silent Hitchcock restoration project.

The original version of The Lodger directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926 was restored in 1999 in honor of the directors 100th anniversary. The film was restored by the British National Film & TV Archives and a new score by Ashley Irwin was commissioned by ZDF/ARTE (Germany) and premiered on August 13, 1999 (what would have been Hitchcock's 100th birthday).

Edited into Histoire(s) du cinéma: Une vague nouvelle (1999)