MAN IN THE ATTIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 797, 29 October 1954, Page 16

MAN IN THE ATTIC

(Panoramic-20th Century Fox) O the best of my knowledge and belief (as they are fond of saying in the courts) this is the first film version of The Lodger to be made since the death of Mrs. Belloc Lowndes in 1947. That would be more of a distinction, of course, if there hadn’t been several earlier screen editions produced before Mrs. Belloc Lowndes stopped cashing the royalty cheques in person, but at least it allows filmgoers whose memories are longer than average, or who happen to have the novel on the bookshelf, to indulge in the luxury of invidious comparison. And unless my eyes deceive you, you will find such comparisons easy enough to make. The story of Jack the Ripper, however, is one of the classics of horror and even a second-class presentation of it can hardly avoid inducing an occasional spasm of chill. The mysterious nature of

the killer, the methodical selection of the victims, their screams which pierce the blanket of the dark at suitably spaced intervals throughout the story, the ominous figure of The Lodger, black bag in hand, moving stealthily through the murky streets-the very rawness of the raw materials produces an instinctive crinkling of the scalp. But in Man in the Attic neither script nor direction (nor, for that matter, casting) do anything to improve on earlier screen versions of the thriller or to augment the impact of the original story. On the contrary, incongruities in casting and solecisms in dialogue substantially leavened the horror with relaxing laughter and (for me, at least) kept the blood circulating at a steady 98.4 Fahrenheit. If my recollection of The Lodger is at all accurate (it was seen here about