Closing this year’s NFM Organ Cinema series, The Lodger, directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926, is the first film made in a specific style better known from Hitchcock’s later productions. We will encounter, for example, characteristic suspense, Christian iconography, shots of stairs, screaming women and a whole lot of fare for lovers of psychoanalysis. During the show, the musical accompaniment to the tense images will be improvisations by the well-known duo of organist Tomasz Głuchowski and DJ Michał Macewicz.

The script of the British thriller, originally subtitled The Tale of the London Fog, was inspired by the famous story of Jack the Ripper, who is believed to be responsible for the death of eleven women in the capital of the Empire. The basis of the presented plot is the best-selling novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes with the same title as the later production. It tells the story of a landlady who suspects her tenant of being a serial killer. The main role in the film was played by Ivor Novello – a composer of musicals, who tried his hand at acting in the 1920s.

Hitchcock’s production was so successful in British cinemas that it brought about the English premieres of two of the director’s earlier works, produced in Germany. Hitchcock’s work in this country significantly influenced the creation of The Lodger. There, he learned about the achievements of German film expressionists, such as Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Fritz Lang. It was their work that inspired the master of suspense to use unusual camera angles and play with darkness and light.