The Lodger (1944)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Lodger (1944) – J. Brahm

Filling in the missing films noir that I haven’t seen means seeing some that are pretty ordinary.  John Brahm’s films fit that bill (although I think I enjoyed Hangover Square, 1945, and The Locket, 1946, a bit more than this one).  Taking its name and its general idea from the earlier Hitchcock film (and/or the source novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes), The Lodger is set in London during the time of Jack the Ripper.  Heavy-set character actor Laird Cregar (whose career was cut short by heart failure at age 30) plays the man who moves into the attic rooms and attracts suspicion when he stays out all night and leaves other clues that he might be the Ripper.  Merle Oberon plays the music hall dancer who would seem to be a prime target for the villain and who does attract the interest of Cregar too.  George Sanders is on hand as the detective on the case.  Although the film never really builds suspense (and this may be the fault of the somewhat incongruous music by Hugo Friedhofer), the mise-en-scene is well developed and there is a foggy/misty atmosphere throughout the Whitehall section of London that makes all the events seem dreamlike (when perhaps they should have been nightmarish).