"TO-NIGHT! GOLDEN CURLS"

Feels like ground zero for a lot of things. Ground zero for the serial killer thriller. Ground zero for the masked and/or hatted violator - the id's anthropomorphosis of death itself, according to some theories. Ground zero for the petite blonde Hitchcock femme-in-jeopardy. And of course, ground zero for Alfred Hitchcock the Director, which makes this film a landmark in and of itself (OK, yeah, he'd made a couple others beforehand, but this is the first one that anyone took much notice of).

In one important respect, the film is neutered by the insistence of the producers that famous heart-throb Ivor Novello couldn't possibly be allowed to be the killer (contrary to the source material's plot resolution). But this does allow Hitchcock to muddy the waters more comprehensively between Jonathan, the lodger, and pugnacious police inspector Joe Chandler (played by Malcolm Keen, who pretty much steals the show with his wonderful performance) - are the police any better than the criminals? The sort of nuanced nihilism you'd expect to see more in a film from '72 than '27.

And even though the resolution feels way too safe and anti-climactic, is it just me, or was Hitchcock still trying to plant the seeds of doubt in our minds? Yes, it turns out that not only is Jonathan not the killer, but he's also RICH (yay!) - and so our blonde ingénue can live happily ever after with her suitable man. But is there some extra meaning in those flashing neons across the way? Something insidious in the showcasing of those golden curls? There's always something wrong in the space between Hitchcock and his blonde objectification, so why not from the very start?

Probably reaching. But I'd like to think there's some retrospective pay-off to those echoes of trauma from the future...

HoopTober Diez… And Goez to Hell…

Hitchcock Ranked!