"The Lodger" is not a history lesson and is based very, very loosely on Jack the Ripper. I say this because as a retired history teacher, I've noticed that a lot of folks think many film characters are real...and Mr. Slade and his odd proclivities are based on some real events as well as a lot of fiction.

When the film begins, London is all in a panic due to the murders by Jack the Ripper. During all this hubbub, the ever-odd Mr. Slade (Laird Cregar) arrives at the home of two folks (Sara Allgood and Cederic Hardwicke). He wants to rent a room and seems like a pretty normal guy...initially. However, through the course of the film, you see more and more of the weird and peculiar aspects of Slade and folks start to add up all the weird details and think he might just be that serial killer.

This film works pretty well because it sets an excellent creepy mood and Laird Cregar really was terrific as the creepy lodger. Too bad he died so young, as he sure had a great screen presence! Worth seeing.

Once again, we have the streets of London taken over by Jack the Ripper (at least his ilk). Women are being murdered on dark foggy nights as the return to their homes or wander the streets. Some are prostitutes; some are just careless citizens. Anyway, the city is on edge and no one dares look past any stranger. Of course, that is assuming the person is a stranger. That said, a man takes a room in a house. His comings and goings are suspicious to the landlords, but they are also in need of the rent. Times aren't the best. The whole plot evolves around the murder of the women and how the man in the house is connected to their whereabouts. This is a very intense, well made film with great suspense.

Circumstances have forced the Bunting family to take in The Lodger at the same time in 1888 that the notorious Jack The Ripper was terrorizing all of London, particularly in the Whitechapel District where the Buntings reside. It should have made them think twice about taking in a boarder who is a complete stranger.

Speculation about the Ripper murders has had professional and amateur criminologists going for years. There is no definitive work on Jack The Ripper because his identity is officially unknown. The Lodger is a work of novelist Maria Belloc Lowndes and her speculation is as good as anyone's including mine.

What she did do and what 20th Century Fox did as well is give a great role to Laird Cregar, sad to say his next to last. Cregar is a mysterious medical student whose nocturnal wanderings have everyone wondering. Who's wondering most of all is Scotland Yard Inspector George Sanders.

The Buntings, Cedric Hardwicke and Sara Allgood, think nothing of him at first, but his attentions to their actress daughter Merle Oberon are creeping them out. Not to mention the unease that she is slowly feeling around Cregar.

Director John Brahm got some great performances out of his cast and really caught the mood of Victorian London. But Cregar will arouse all kinds of conflicting emotions in you. You will hate, loath, and pity him all at once, not an easy thing for an actor to maintain, but Cregar pulls it off.

The Lodger is a remake of a film young Alfred Hitchcock did as a silent. They're both good, but I give the edge to this one.