{"id":43651,"date":"2024-04-26T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=43651"},"modified":"2024-04-23T19:06:08","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T23:06:08","slug":"the-bootleg-files-room-to-let","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/26\/the-bootleg-files-room-to-let\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Room to Let"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 863:<\/strong> \u201cRoom to Let\u201d (1950 British drama inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> We cannot confirm the last presentation of this film.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> On a collector-to-collector label.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> An obscure film that fell through the cinematic cracks.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: <\/strong>Not likely.<\/p>\n

Unless you are a scholar of either the Hammer Film Productions canon or cinematic endeavors inspired by the Jack the Ripper crimes, there is an excellent chance that you never heard of the 1950 British film \u201cRoom to Let.\u201d And that would be a great shame, because \u201cRoom to Let\u201d might be the greatest film you never saw.<\/p>\n

In concept, there was little in \u201cRoom to Let\u201d to inspire greatness. With a 68-minute running time, the film was never intended to be more than the lower half of a double feature bill in British cinemas. The film\u2019s director, Godfrey Grayson, was not responsible for any work that could be mistaken for a classic. And the film covers territory that was previously plumbed in critically and commercially successful works by Alfred Hitchcock with \u201cThe Lodger\u201d in 1927 and John Brahm with \u201cThe Lodger\u201d in 1944.
\n<\/p>\n

Yet Grayson\u2019s little B-grade obscurity outshines the works of Hitchcock and Brahm with sharp plotting, wonderfully focused performances and a sense of intelligence and style that transcends its cheapie roots. By the closing credits, it is impossible not to wonder why this film fell into obscurity.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoom to Let\u201d opens in the present day when the now-aged reporter Curly Minter (played by Jimmy Hanley with a hair and make-up job reminiscent of Robert Donat\u2019s aged Mr. Chips) is invited to a dinner where he recounts one of the strangest stories he ever covered. The film then goes into a flashback to 1904 where Minter covers a fire at a mental hospital that killed five of the patients in a section for the criminally insane \u2013 except that there is a brief disagreement whether that section housed five or six patients. Minter\u2019s attempt to report that one of the patients escaped is squashed by his editor, who fears such a story would spark a panic among London\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the fire, the scene shifts to the Musgrave household in London, which is occupied by the wheelchair bound matriarch Mrs. Musgrave (Christine Silver), her beautiful daughter Molly (Constance Smith) and their maid Alice (Merle Tottenham). The Musgraves are what the British refer to as down-at-heel and they advertise for a lodger to help cover their expenses. Their advertisement is answered by someone calling himself Dr. Fell \u2013 as played by Valentine Dyall, he is a stark and humorless aristocratic figure (complete with silk top hat and cape) who can pay for his lodgings for the next three months.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the Musgrave home, Dr. Fell starts to run the residence. He insists on turning down the gaslights, keeping the shades drawn and preventing Molly from having her boyfriend Minter as a visitor. When Molly arranges for a job interview so the household can become financially self-sufficient, Dr. Fell physically stops her from leaving the residence. While Minter becomes suspicious that Dr. Fell might be the sixth patient of the mental hospital fire who escaped an incinerating death, Mrs. Musgrave learns that her lodger has more than an academic knowledge of the Jack the Ripper murders that terrorized London\u2019s Whitechapel section in 1888.<\/p>\n

However, when Minter brings a constable to the Musgrave home to rescue its residents from their increasingly unstable lodger, Mrs. Musgrave is found tipped over from her wheelchair on the first floor while Dr. Fell is discovered shot to death in a locked room on the second floor \u2013 but there is no trace of murder weapon. What created the scene that forced Mrs. Musgrave out of her wheelchair while leaving Dr. Fell dead in a locked room with no obvious culprit, let alone the instrument of his demise?<\/p>\n

\u201cRoom the Let\u201d was adapted from a 1947 BBC Radio play written by Margery Allingham, which bore than a passing resemblance to Marie Belloc Lowndes\u2019 1913 novel \u201cThe Lodger,\u201d which told the tale of an older woman with a young daughter who rented a room to a peculiar man who is suspected of being responsible for Jack the Ripper-style serial killings. Allingham\u2019s work had enough differences from the Belloc Lowndes work to avoid the charge of outright plagiarism, especially with the third act murder mystery and the invigorating explanation for how it occurred. (And, no, there are no spoilers to be found in this review!)<\/p>\n

Director Grayson moves \u201cRoom to Let\u201d along at a brisk pace that is fueled by the spirited performances. Dyall\u2019s villain is a force of intellectual rather than physical menace \u2013 he takes over the Musgrave through his dominating personality, using his voice to maintain the captivity of the household. Smith\u2019s beauty masks a wonderfully steely determination not to become Dr. Fell\u2019s prisoner \u2013 and the power of her personality overshadows her would-be suitors played with epicene style by Hanley and Charles Hawtrey, the spindly comic actor who later gained stardom as the campy cut-up of the Carry On films. (Oddly, Smith would play a similar role when she relocated to Hollywood a few years later to co-star in \u201cMan in the Attic,\u201d a remake of \u201cThe Lodger.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Shout outs are needed for cinematographer Cedric Williams \u2013 particularly in the noirish scene when Molly confronts Dr. Fell \u2013 and Frank Spencer\u2019s score, which perfectly accentuates the growing sense of menace without clobbering the audience through too-obvious music cues.<\/p>\n

Due to its short running time and lack of bankable marquee talent, \u201cRoom to Let\u201d had no theatrical value outside of Britain. However, the film crossed the Atlantic thanks to CBS, which acquired it as part of a slew of British features that the television network used to fill its late-night broadcast slots during the 1950s and early 1960s. Thus, the only Americans who became acquainted with the film were insomniacs in the early years of network television who caught broadcasts during the twilight hours.<\/p>\n

To date, there has been no commercial home entertainment release of \u201cRoom to Let\u201d in the American market; incredibly, it is not on YouTube or the other major online video sites. Sinister Cinema once offered the film on video while the collector-to-collector service Loving the Classics sells a DVD sourced from a broadcast on Britain\u2019s Channel 4. <\/p>\n

Unless a label like The Criterion Collection includes \u201cRoom to Let\u201d in a round-up of Hammer\u2019s output, it is unlikely the film will have a proper home entertainment release. And that is a major shame because \u201cRoom to Let\u201d is a forgotten gem that deserves to be praised as a mini-classic of the thriller genre.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to Phil Hall\u2019s award-winning podcast \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall<\/a>\u201d on SoundCloud and his radio show \u201cNutmeg Chatter<\/a>\u201d on WAPJ-FM in Torrington, Connecticut, with a new episode every Sunday. His new book \u201c100 Years of Wall Street Crooks<\/a>\u201d is now in release through Bicep Books.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 863: \u201cRoom to Let\u201d (1950 British drama inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders). LAST SEEN: We cannot confirm the last presentation of this film. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On a collector-to-collector label. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: An obscure film that fell through the cinematic cracks. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":43652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[2815,1705,3392,3391,520,3390,3376],"class_list":["post-43651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-b-movie","tag-british-cinema","tag-constance-smith","tag-hammer-film-productions","tag-jack-the-ripper","tag-room-to-let","tag-the-lodger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43651"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43656,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43651\/revisions\/43656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}