Saturday morning, while watching the 1944 film The Lodger (a remake of a 1927 Hitchcock film), starring my man George Sanders, I had a few Whaddayouknow?!?! moments, that I’ll take the liberty of sharing.
The musically relevant moment came toward the end of the film, when Merle Oberon’s character is performing in a play attended by a character who is a lodger at her house and is suspected of being Jack the Ripper. The jaunty musical number being performed sounded familiar. Then I realized it was essentially my favorite song by Fiery Furnaces, “Single Again.” After hearing their second album, Blueberry Boat, I likely would have never bought an album by them, but hearing “Single Again” on WPRB one night a few years ago had me curious. My main man Townsman Geo recommended the 10-song EP from which that song came and the rest was history. I’ve since bought one other album by them, The Philadelphia Experiment, I think it’s called. Plenty of good stuff on that one too. Anyhow, I had NO IDEA in all the years I’ve owned this album that “Single Again” was a take on a traditional song. Figures…on many levels.
The other thing that caught my attention in this film was that the suspected Jack the Ripper character had my surname! I never paid much attention to the Jack the Ripper story, and a minute of research this afternoon said that the Ripper was never caught or identified, so this character’s surname was fictional and not one more black spot on my bloodlines. Right?
The guys name was “Moderator”?
As March runs out, Geo makes a bid for Post Of The Month!!
Definitely, Al. The clock reads “00:05.”
Am I the only one frothing at the mouth for a review of the LODGER? I’m a Laird Creager fan, he had a long career as a creepy character actor. I think the story has been remade again this year.
Along a similar esoteric realm, I was wowwed recently by the 1932 special effects extravaganza CHANDU THE MAGICIAN. It’s Bela Lugosi in all his glory (a year after DRACULA and the same year as WHITE ZOMBIE) as the villain Roxor, battling a magician who has studied with Indian mystics with the power to cloud men’s minds. It’s rip-snorting.
Funny, gone are the days when you would look at a movie and say “how’d they do that?”. Now the answer we all know is “with computers”. Watching some of the archaic special effects in CHANDU still evoke that “how’d they do it” response. Not that they look “realistic” (a plus in my book, since “unrealistic” effects, like those in WIZARD OF OZ would not be better if they were less stylized), it’s just that the crazy techniques that they used to pull off these shots are unknown or semi-forgotten.
Anyway, rock on….
I didn’t catch the entire movie, db, just the last 40 minutes. Are you telling me you haven’t seen it? I liked what I saw. I love tales of creepy, twisted stalkers who walk the fine line between love and hate. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen Creager before, but he was excellent. Between the subject matter and George Sanders, not to mention my suspicion that this was the Hitchcock film I’d never seen (AND thinking I might get a Bowie tie-in out of watching it), I came to a screeching halt while flipping channels. It was worth my effort. Merle Oberon was good for her part, too.
I like what you say about digital vs “analog” special effects. One of the best things about the wildly uneven Francis Ford Coppola’s Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was Coppola’s commitment to those effects. Like the rest of the movie, it wasn’t entirely successful, but it was a good effort.
Please forgive the pince nez that’s about to come, but The Fiery Furnaces don’t have an album called The Philadelphia Experiment, so I’m just curious which one you mean. I’m thinking that you might mean Widow City because its lead track is called “The Philadelphia Grand Jury”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widow_City
Yes, Berlyant, that’s the one I meant. To my credit, I did indicate that I was uncertain about the actual title. Next time I’ll take a second to pull up the album title rather than go with my gut:)
Moddy, You should really see the rest of The Lodger, it’s definitely worth it, as is the 1926 silent original, which was Hitchcock’s 1st suspense thriller. It was remade 3 times, the 2nd in 1932, featuring Ivor Novello repeating the lead role from the original. Then there’s the ’44 film you saw part of, which is better than the 1st remake. Finally, it was made as “Man in the Attic” in 1954, with Jack Palance in the lead, & it’s not bad, but the original & the ’44 version are probably the best. It’s kind of hard to go wrong with Jack the Ripper as your source material. So, until next week; the balcony is closed.