A couple of weeks ago, we had Part 1 of this series on the Belloc siblings, a sister and a brother who were both writers. You can find the first post in this series RIGHT HERE. And this is a good time to mention that I was able to grab some of today's YouTube links from the excellent website Brenton On Film.
Okay, so the Belloc sister, Marie Belloc Lowndes, wrote under her married name, and she gained fame when her book The Lodger became a movie in the earliest days of cinema. While the Hitchcock film is an amazing adaptation of Lowndes' work, there have been a number of other versions of the book. Just to start with, it's been made into an opera! You can find that HERE.
In the 1940s there were lots of suspense-themed radio programs, so it's not surprising that Marie Belloc Lowndes' chilling tale went out over the radio airwaves. One of the most popular radio suspense programs was called -- well, "Suspense." There were two versions of "The Lodger" on that show, the first in 1940. (A link to the later version is included in the previous post in this series, which you can easily find by using the link in the top paragraph of today's post.)
In 1947, The Lodger
became an episode of the popular program "Mystery in the Air." This
version, which aired on August 14, 1947, came from the novel and is not
an adaptation of the film. Peter Lorre is the star.
Vincent Price, at that time, still had many years ahead of him as a baddie in film and on the radio. He appeared on the "Hollywood Star Time" program in their version of "The Lodger," adapted from a then-upcoming movie version. Price wasn't in the film, but he was in another movie coming out from the same studio. His scheduled co-star was Ida Lupino, but in the introduction, the announcer said Lupino had laryngitis and would be replaced by popular radio actress Cathy Lewis, known for her recurring role on the hit show "My Friend Irma." The announcer is Wendell Niles.
"Hollywood Star Time" was broadcast on the CBS radio network. Many years later, after television had taken over the role radio used to have in people's lives, there was a revival of the old-time format. "CBS Mystery Theater," starring E. G. Marshall, which ran from 1974 to 1982, did "The Lodger" but said the script was "specially written" for them. (Reminds me of the many "Lodger" rip-off movies with titles made up from word assemblages made with "Man," "Maniac," "Fiend," "Upstairs," "Attic," and so on.)
Before I leave the radio adaptations... You ever have something you are dying to hear, something you missed because you didn't know about it? In 2003, the
BBC did a radio version of "The Lodger." which I would so love to
hear. Looks like it has been re-broadcast as recently as 2021, so I hope
I'll be able to catch it sometime. Crossing my fingers, both hands.
Skipping all the really crummy versions of "The Lodger," including a 2009 modern update with a poster inviting an audience hoping to see young beautiful women destroyed by mutilation, this brings us back to the original author, Marie Belloc Lowndes created a psychological thriller with enough to it that so many creative types found a new spins to put on it. Lowndes was really prolific, and her novels sold well at the time. As is true for so many writers, much of the work has not worn well. However, there are exceptions. For example, The Story of Ivy.
Like Lowndes' earlier book, The Story of Ivy was adapted in a number of ways. The thriller was a sort of gender-reversal on The Lodger. [Mild spoiler ahead.] Instead of a sex-obsessed man preying on women, we have a money-mad woman preying on a man.
The popular radio show "Suspense" aired an episode on June 21, 1945, based on The Story of Ivy.
There was also a film version, starring Joan Fontaine, and you can watch that for free at Internet Archive.
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