This untold origin story of the filmmaker explores its transatlantic history. Alfred Hitchcock called The Lodger "the first true Hitchcock movie," one that anticipated all the others. And yet, the story of how The Lodger came to be made is shrouded in myth, often repeated and much embellished, by even Hitchcock himself. The truth--revealed in new archival discoveries--is stranger still. 

In The First True Hitchcock: The Making of a Filmmaker (University of California Press, 2022), Henry K. Miller situates The Lodger against the backdrop of a continent shattered by war and confronted with the looming presence of a new superpower, the United States, whose most visible export was film. The details of The Lodger's making in the London fog and its attempted remaking in the Los Angeles sun is the story of how Hitchcock became Hitchcock.

Joel Tscherne is an Adjunct History Professor at Southern New Hampshire University. His Twitter handle is @JoelTscherne.

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