Alfred Hitchcock

[wllm995]

My copy of the Premiere Collection B&W version lists the running time as 100 minutes.

[MichaelB]

sorry if this is a kind of a dumb question. :p

Whats the actual length of The Lodger: A Story Of The London Fog? I've watched the tinted version clocks in at around 70mins & I've noticed theres a B&W version that's around 90mins in length.

Is this just a frame rate thing?

A discrepancy of a full 20 minutes sounds as though it's more than a frame rate issue.

I'm tempted to assume that the BFI restorations are the most likely to be definitive, given that they're full-scale restorations as opposed to simply striking new prints. The latest one is unveiled later this year, and I don't know the running time as yet, but I understand that it won't be substantially different from the already pretty solid 1990s restoration, which runs more or less exactly 90 minutes on Network's DVD. This is also tinted, though, so possibly not the version you're referring to.

But it seems to me that to get a 70 minute running time you'd either have to play it much too fast or you'd have to cut quite a bit out. What's your source for this tinted version?

[Jonathan S]

I have three copies of The Lodger, each with a different score but all tinted and all starting with a National Film (or Film & Television) Archive credit:
Channel 4 broadcast (almost 71 minutes with 4% PAL speed-up)
BFI VHS release (93 minutes with 4% PAL speed-up)
MGM R1 DVD (99 minutes)

I haven't made detailed comparisons, though I don't recall any major differences in footage. I remember the film really seemed to drag in the MGM DVD, perhaps partly because I was used to seeing it faster speeds. (The C4 broadcast is too fast but not absurdly so, in my opinion.) Is there any record of what speed it was originally shown at? I think one that produced a duration of around 80-90 minutes would be ideal for me.

[MichaelB]

Given that it's a silent film, are you sure about the PAL speedup? Presumably if a film is transferred directly to PAL video at a non-standard frame rate, this isn't an issue?

[Jonathan S]

I think it may be an issue with the 71-minute off-air C4 recording, which wouldn't surprise me if it were transferred at 25fps PAL sound speed (especially as it was about 20 years ago, when actual film prints were I think still sometimes used for TV). I agree it isn't really an issue with the slowed down BFI commercial release, but I just wanted to acknowledge I was comparing two PAL editions with a NTSC one, as that is often the first thing pointed out as a factor in different running times .

[MichaelB]

A film that runs 90 minutes at 24fps would run more than 86 minutes at 25fps, so this 71-minute version must either have been run at an implausibly fast framerate or it must have had several minutes physically cut from it. My money's on the latter.

The Network DVD is from an actual BFI restoration, as opposed to just a National Film Archive viewing print, so I'm assuming that's the most authoritative version currently available. And that runs 90:12, though I suspect most or all of the twelve seconds is down to a title card highlighting the fact that it's the BFI restoration.

[Jonathan S]

A film that runs 90 minutes at 24fps would run more than 86 minutes at 25fps, so this 71-minute version must either have been run at an implausibly fast framerate or it must have had several minutes physically cut from it. My money's on the latter.

But is 24fps the rate used on the 90-minute version? I didn't mean to imply that 24fps would be "correct", but if you know it to be the rate they did use, that's useful information of course. I assumed it would be slower than 24fps.

The length - and even presence - of main titles and intertitles (apart from frame-rate) can of course vary considerably from print to print and especially between viewing prints and restorations. The C4 print doesn't even have an end title! But there may be more important differences in footage I've missed. When I compared the Rohauer and German TV prints of The Pleasure Garden I found each had footage missing from the other.

Edit: I should emphasise I've not seen the Network edition of The Lodger at all - I avoided it because of the absence of any score. I assumed it would be the same as the MGM version which, according to Silent Era, was supplied by the BFI and came out a year later. But in fact the MGM is 9 minutes longer than the Network - presumably due to a different fps, which I did feel was too slow.

[MichaelB]

I suppose it's conceivable that the 90-minute version was transferred at 20fps (slow for 1926, but not impossible) - if that's the case, it would run 75 mins at 24fps and 72 mins at 25fps.

[martin]

Some years ago I looked into 4 different Lodger releases. It's still online, but in Danish, so I'll give a short summary here instead.

The 4 versions were:
German dvd from Concorde, 70:40 minutes
US dvd from BCI, 89:40 mins.
ARTE/ZDF recording, 99 mins. (same as the later MGM dvd)
BFI VHS, 93 mins.

The German dvd is a PAL 25 fps frame-by-frame transfer. All the others have been slowed down to achieve a more genuine silent era speed by using techniques somewhat similar to 3:2 pulldown. The footage is exactly the same (bar tinting), except the BCI which is trimmed a bit (and seems to miss some frames here and there because of bad editing or poor picture quality).

[MichaelB]

BBC report on the BFI's silent Hitchcock restoration project (includes video).

[MichaelB]

A three-disc edition of The Lodger is up for preorder at Play.com, for a 24 September release - and the music credit for Nitin Sawhney suggests that this is the BFI restoration.

Reading between the lines, I'm also guessing that this consists of a Blu-ray, a DVD and a CD of the score.

The other point worth noting is that it's unbelievably cheap for a brand new restoration - so much so that it may be a misprice.

[eerik]

A three-disc edition of The Lodger is up for preorder at Play.com, for a 24 September release - and the music credit for Nitin Sawhney suggests that this is the BFI restoration.

Reading between the lines, I'm also guessing that this consists of a Blu-ray, a DVD and a CD of the score.

The other point worth noting is that it's unbelievably cheap for a brand new restoration - so much so that it may be a misprice.

BVA says there will be separate DVD release and Play.com has pre-order up, at 100 pounds.

[MichaelB]

That has to be a misprice!

[eerik]

DVD price has gone down to £12.99 while the Blu-ray went up to £17.99. Still nothing on Amazon.

[MichaelB]

DVD price has gone down to £12.99 while the Blu-ray went up to £17.99. Still nothing on Amazon.

I'm glad I pre-ordered!

[MichaelB]

The BFI's trailer for the restored The Pleasure Garden - which consists of the first couple of minutes of the film.

[MichaelB]

...and here's a detailed account of the restoration challenges.

And to reply to those idiots on another forum who thought that the film looked fine on DVD and that the restoration was a waste of money:

The upshot of the restoration is that their 'definitive' version of The Pleasure Garden, sewn together, restoring those characters, shots and sequences that had been snipped out, is now a full 20 minutes longer than any surviving single print. It’s almost back to the 90 minute running time of Hitchcock's original. This makes the movie much more coherent and therefore more enjoyable for a modern audience - who aren’t used to the conventions of silent films anyway, and who really struggled with a dodgily abridged one. For film scholars, it may well prompt a thorough re-evaluation.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

BBC RADIO 4 Front Row Coming this thursday.

On Thursday Kirsty Lang interviews the acclaimed bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, who reflects on the role of the voice in Welsh culture. Architecture writer Hugh Pearman discusses whether skyscrapers have any limits, and composers Nitin Sawhney, Mira Calix and Neil Brand share notes on the challenge of creating new scores for silent Alfred Hitchcock films.

Podcastage is available globally I think. It will be also on listen again BBC I-Player for those equipped.

[MichaelB]

It's UK-only, I'm afraid, but the BFI will be streaming their restoration of The Ring, complete with the new score by Soweto Kinch, free of charge on July 13.

More details here.

[antnield]

Sight & Sound are publishing 39 Steps to the Genius of Hitchcock on the 25th of this month. You can read four of the articles in full here, including our own MichaelB's contribution.

[Robert de la Cheyniest]

For all NYC based cinephiles, you should really make the trek out to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens tomorrow. You'll be able to see Vertigo in an original IB Technicolor print.

I saw it today and not only is the print in great shape but frankly the color puts any home video edition to shame. I've seen it countless times but seeing an original print of it was like seeing it for the first time. Pretty much a once in a lifetime experience

[hearthesilence]

I would totally go see this if it wasn't so far and if my best friend from high school wasn't it town. (He's actually leaving beforehand, but we didn't get back until 3 a.m., and I'm feeling too crappy and drowsy to stay awake for a movie.) Saw the restoration at BAM, which was very good, but like most restorations, the color doesn't "bloom" the way these prints do, plus it had that jarring re-Foley'd soundtrack.

[MichaelB]

Two more silent Hitchcock updates.

1. The BFI has just published a short documentary about the restoration of The Pleasure Garden.

2. On Thursday 27th September, there'll be a second feature-length live stream, this time of Champagne. I'm guessing this will be UK-only, but going from a recent Rialto announcement it sounds as though the BFI restorations will be making a US appearance before too long.

[neilist]

Two more silent Hitchcock updates.

1. The BFI has just published a short documentary about the restoration of The Pleasure Garden.

2. On Thursday 27th September, there'll be a second feature-length live stream, this time of Champagne. I'm guessing this will be UK-only, but going from a recent Rialto announcement it sounds as though the BFI restorations will be making a US appearance before too long.

Fantastic, many thanks for this. The restored 'The Pleasure Garden' is being shown tomorrow at the Cambridge Film Festival, so I'll certainly give this (and the other short Hitchcock documentaries on the same website) a watch tonight. Much appreciated, thanks.

[MichaelB]

I'd forgotten I'd ordered this months ago (taking advantage of a Play.com misprice which they were kind enough to honour), but the Blu-ray of the BFI restoration of The Lodger turned up today, and a quick spin suggests that it's turned out pretty well. I haven't encountered the notorious songs yet, but the score in general seems to be a very good fit.

As for the picture, it's as clean as a whistle (as one would expect), but isn't as sharp as my benchmark silent Blu-rays (City Girl, Coeur fidèle, The Great White Silence). But a side-by-side comparison with my old Network DVD (sourced from the BFI's late-90s photochemical restoration) reveals several clear advances - on the telegraph machine approx 3:40 in you can clearly make out what's written on the white keys, whereas on the DVD you can't even see that there's anything printed on them in the first place.

The toning is also a fair bit more elaborate than was the case with the DVD.