[Daily Dose #2: To-night Golden Curls (Opening Scene of The Lodger)]

1. Similarities/differences for Pleasure Garden (PG) and The Lodger (L): The focus again was on blond/fair-haired girls. There were voyeuristic elements in both at the beginning, namely the leering men in the audience (PG) and then the crowd surrounding the woman telling her story (L); humour was also present in both - the sleeping woman in the audience (PG) and the newspaper seller pleased the murders were happening as Tuesday meant increased paper sales (L).

 

However, the differences were that in the PG you met the characters straight away - namely, the two young girls who are central to the film, whereas in L, the main protagonists, indeed even the Lodger himself is not seen until later in the film. In addition, in L it is apparent that murder, in particular, a possible serial killer, is the main theme of the film, whilst in PG the main theme is not at the outset of the film.

 

2. The Hitchcock-style was evident for me with the clever use of the camera work, for example the image of the two newspaper delivery men's heads positioned in the two round windows of their van, reminiscent of a pair of spectacles (I'm currently reading 'The Great Gatsby' at the moment, and an image of spectacles plays heavily in that novel, and that novel would have just been published whilst the film was being made - although probably completely unrelated!).

 

Also the juxtaposition of the scenes with the woman relaying her story to the Police and onlookers, with the ones with the newspaper reporters relaying the story to their editors.

 

The way he also used the newspaper editor's typing machine to explain that another murder had occurred, allowing us to recognise that this was not the first one.  In addition, the use of the printing machinery and the production of the newspapers reminded me somewhat of 'Metropolis' with its machines.

 

3. The woman screaming was shot slightly off angle and from above, which meant the viewer was looking down on the woman, giving the impression that you the viewer were looking through the eyes of the murderer. The shot reminded me of ones used in Psycho and The Birds.

[Daily Dose #1: Spiralling into View: The Pleasure Garden (1925)]

I believe there are many Hitchcock touches here, from the never ending descent of beautiful girls descending the spiral staircase, the framing of the following shot as the onlooker watches the girls on the stage through the curtains and the introduction of a blonde girl, which Hitch did seem to favour in many of his later films.

 

The assessments given by Strauss et al were correct. There was the juxtaposition of the 'smoking prohibited' sign with the man smoking underneath it; the fuzzy camera shot that then focuses on the girls' legs with the use of binoculars - this implies that you too, as the audience, are very much the voyeur in the film, which was a common theme in Rear Window; the touch of comedy of the woman asleep at the end of the seated leering men; the highlighted camera shots of the blonde woman's face in the chorus line-up and later the woman's purse highlighted before the thieves pinch it. 

 

The use of dialogue was in-keeping for the period. Hitch created a lot of tension in his films through music and the actions of his actors and so the lack of dialogue was not hampered in any way, as you felt that sense of disbelief and disappointment with the woman who could not find her letter in her purse, from the actions she was doing.