Man in the Attic (1953)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Load of rubbish!!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is the fourth of five films based upon Marie Belloc Lowndes novel "The Lodger."Alfred Hitchcock did the first in 1927 as a silent, and it was remade into a talkie in 1933. It was done again in 1944. All of the films prior to this one were called The Lodger after the book. The name was used again in the fifth film in 2009.I cannot imagine a better person to be a mysterious killer than Jack Palance. He was very young here, but he would go on to garner two Oscar nominations for his evil villains.Frances Bavier is sneaking around trying to find some dirt on her lodger. You will remember her best as Aunt Bee from the Andy Griffith Show. She was also in the original The Day the Earth Stood Still. Her character is consistent across all films and TV I have seen her in. She is a treasure, or was as she died in 1989.

Something about the Whitechapel killings during Queen Victoria's reign has always gripped the public's imagination. I think it a combination of the youth and beauty of Jack the Ripper's victims and that the case was never solved has contributed to our fascination. That it is unsolved has led some to speculate the Ripper was a prominent person, maybe even a member of the Royal Family as one theory has it.In Man In The Attic we have yet another speculative theory in the form of a historical novel by Belloc Lowndes. A rather well spoken, but shy man played by Jack Palance who is a research pathologist takes lodging at the home of Rhys Williams and Frances Bavier. Later on their daughter Constance Smith who is a well known actress returns from a tour of the continent and she moves back in with her parents. No suspense involved here, just the casting of Jack Palance who was up for a Supporting Actor award for playing the cold blooded killer Wilson in Shane tells you right away whom we suspect. Those of us in the audience that is. The future Aunt Bea of Mayberry is the first to suspect her boarder. She alerts Scotland Yard's Byron Palmer who starts to take a look at him.Palance's performance is calculated and controlled like Wilson in Shane, but this man is very different with different kinds of issues in his life. I could have seen him as Jack The Ripper.Man In The Attic will entertain and send your brain to thinking about Whitechapel. And there will be no end of books and films on Jack The Ripper.

Remake of The Lodger with Jack Palance playing the odd young man who may or may not be Jack the Ripper. Good, but not great, film of the oft told tale, who's ending has been changed in the various versions so to keep you guessing if he is or is not the maniac of White Chapel (sometimes he is the killer and sometimes he's not-I'm not telling which it is this time).Palance is suitably uneasy in what may have been one of his first starring roles. The rest of the cast is also very good although its very disconcerting to see Frances Bavier, Aunt Bea on the Andy Griffith Show, as an English matron. The film's musical numbers, its set in part at a music hall, don't really work so the film kind of slows down. Worth a look should you come across it.

Curiously tepid re-telling of the Jack the Ripper legend. Jack Palance certainly looks the part. With his rictus-like face, long lean body, and sinister smile, he's the most unusual of figures. However his Ripper comes across as more neurotic than menacing. As his scenes with Smith suggest, he's emotionally vulnerable, soft-spoken, even with a slight unmasculine lisp and a rampant mother-fixation. Now this is an interesting interpretation of the serial killer. Still and all, it works against Palance's appearance and the menace the role needs. In short, it makes for an interesting psychological profile, but not for the imposing personality that would stir an audience. Palance certainly can't be accused of overplaying the role.There's also too little of the glistening cobblestone streets and alleyways that create the needed background gloom. Likely the budget didn't allow for much of that atmospheric embroidery. Then too, director Hugo Fregonese does't appear to have a stylish feel for the material, which he films in a pretty straightforward unimaginative manner. What the movie does have is a gorgeous Constance Smith in a lively and compelling performance. Whatever happened to her. With her looks and talent, she should qualified for A-list parts, but her career looks a little mysterious, petering out in Italy in the late 50's.Anyway, it's a good chance to scope out the early Jack Palance in a performance that unfortunately falls short of his absolutely spine-chilling gunfighter in the classic Western Shane (1953).