remake

The Lodger has been remade three times officially. The first was a 1932 sound version of the 1926 original, directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Ivor Novello again, although it has a different ending to the Hitchcock movie. The 1944 remake is a period piece starring George Sanders, Merle Oberon, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Laird Cregar as the Lodger, and is much closer to the source material than the previous movies. The killer is actually called Jack the Ripper in this film, not The Avenger as in Hitchcock's Lodger. Man in the Attic, which was actually made in 1954 not 1951, is the third and to date final official version of the story, and is a virtual shot-for-shot remake of the 1944 film, although not as good. The reason I have referred to these films as 'official' remakes is because there is also a 1950 film called Room to Let, which was based on a BBC TV play by Margery Allingham, whose storyline is suspiciously similar to The Lodger, featuring as it does a mysterious man taking rooms in a house, and the owners begin to suspect he may have been Jack the Ripper. The difference is that this film is set several years after the Ripper murders, rather than taking place during them. To be honest, Room to Let is a rather minor piece of work, memorable only because of a strong central performance from Valentine Dyall, a rare dramatic role for Charles Hawtrey (notice I didn't call it a 'straight' role) and the fact the film was produced by Exclusive Films, who later became Hammer. There may be other, even lesser-known, knockoffs on The Lodger in existence, but if there are, I'm not aware of them.