The Lodger

The Lodger (1944) is a shadowy Jack the Ripper thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Foggy Whitechapel, the night of the fourth murder. On that very night a stranger knocks at the Bonting house, asking to rent the rooms upstairs.

He gives his name as Slade, speaks softly, says his work involves anatomy, and likes to slip out after dark. The quiet household feels like a refuge to him. Bit by bit, though, the family notices things they can't explain: nighttime errands, a burned bag, the lodger's unhealthy fascination with their niece Kitty, a music-hall singer. The audience knows more than the characters almost from the start, which only winds the dread tighter. Laird Cregar plays the lodger as a crushed, oddly pitiable figure, with Merle Oberon as Kitty and George Sanders as the inspector closing in.

Director John Brahm builds the whole film out of light and shadow — gaslamps, stairwells, a face surfacing from the dark. This isn't a whodunit but a slow tightening of the inevitable. The closing chase through the wings of a theater ranks among the most striking sequences in 1940s noir. Made for lovers of old black-and-white suspense and Victorian gothic. Stream The Lodger (1944) online on iFILM.