The Paramount has something special tonight for the cinephile on a budget. At 7:30, 25 cents will get you a ticket to The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, an early silent film by Alfred Hitchock, screened with live musical accompaniment by Matthew Marshall and the Reel Music Ensemble.
Hitchock’s third film, based on a classic suspense novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, follows the hunt for a Jack the Ripper-type serial killer in 1920s London. Any Hitchcock’s fan will recognize early examples of what would become his trademarks: an innocent man framed, skewed camera angles, gloomy lighting, anxiety, dead blondes. Should be a nice prelude to next weekend’s Virginia film festival, which will screen a number of refurbished classics from the Library of Congress Film Registry—National Velvet, The General, Terrance Malick’s Badlands, Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller, John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre—all hosted by Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies.