Alfred Hitchcock’s failure to remake his most important movie
Alfred Hitchcock was a notorious perfectionist and couldn’t stand not getting the final word on his films.
There are many reasons that Hitchcock is considered to be one of the greatest directors ever. First and foremost, he directed several films that were so influential that they spawned countless imitators and created entire genres.
However, he was also renowned for his efficiency and consistency, having directed dozens of films without fail, and a majority of them were great. While not every film that he made was going to end up having the same reputation as Psycho or Rear Window, it is fairly impressive that he doesn’t have many clunkers when considering that he was this consistent for over 50 years.
While not often recognised as one of his best films, The Lodger was a very influential effort for Hitchcock because it was one of the first directorial endeavours from his black-and-white era that made a big splash, and became a major inspiration for the development of the serial killer subgenre. Despite the innovative nature of what he had done on a much more meagre budget, it was obvious that the film had faced limitations, and may have worked better had he been given the backing of a major American studio.
Hitchcock’s life and career changed forever in 1940, when he won the Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’ for his gothic romantic drama Rebecca, even though he was infamously snubbed for ‘Best Director’ (and never received that prize from the Oscars). It was after this that he began working in America for producer David O Selznick, who had just won back-to-back ‘Best Picture’ prizes for Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind and Hitchcock’s Rebecca.
Given that the ‘Master of Suspense’ was now a serious force to be reckoned with in global cinema, it seemed right for him to return to his roots and offer a definitive version of the film that made him a name in the first place. In addition to acquiring the rights to the material, Hitchcock also looked into a radio production of The Lodger that was much more accurate to the original novel than his previous film was.
However, he instead chose to make a spiritual successor to the film with Shadow of a Doubt, an American project that touched on similar themes, and given how active he was within the following decade, it’s not hard to see why remaking The Lodger eventually slipped his mind. Hitchcock films like Sauteur, Lifeboat, and Foreign Correspondent were all set in and shot during World War II, and obviously took priority over a passion project like The Lodger.
Ironically, he would end up remaking one of his other films with The Man Who Knew Too Much, and even though the original 1934 version starring Peter Lorre was a perfectly adequate thriller, it was considered to be rather forgotten when compared to the director’s other early features. The 1956 remake he directed featured James Stewart and Doris Day in the leading roles and certainly held a more emotional impact with its kidnapping storyline.
Hitchcock had so many ambitions, many of which weren’t realised in his lifetime, that the case of The Lodger remake has slowly been forgotten about. The problem now is that it doesn’t seem like the remake might ever happen, as it wouldn’t feel right for anyone other than Hitchcock to do it.
