Summaries

A landlady suspects that her new lodger is the madman killing women in London.

A serial killer known as "The Avenger" is on the loose in London, murdering blonde women. A mysterious man arrives at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looking for a room to rent. The Buntings' daughter is a blonde model who is seeing one of the detectives assigned to the case. The detective becomes jealous of the lodger and begins to suspect that he might be the avenger.—Col Needham <[email protected]>

In London, a young, somewhat aloof man rents a room in the rooming-house owned and operated by the Buntings. To Mrs. Bunting, the rent trumps the fact of his odd behavior, which includes asking for the photographs of the young women in his room to be removed. As time progresses, Mrs. Buntings believes their new lodger is the Avenger, a serial killer who has been targeting young blonde women, one victim every Tuesday evening for the past several weeks; feared by, in particular, performers in the Golden Curls revue, in which they all don blonde wigs. If Mrs. Bunting is correct, she might have saved their daughter Daisy Bunting, a blonde model who is developing feelings for the lodger. If Mrs. Bunting is incorrect, she might have tragically sealed the lodger's fate, both in the public having a mob mentality in wanting the Avenger put away for good, and in an acquaintance named Joe, a police detective, having recently assumed the lead in the case--who didn't much like the lodger to begin with, as he sees Daisy as his girl.—Huggo

A man calling himself 'The Avenger' is killing fair-haired women in an area foggy London, creating a panic among the nearby inhabitants. At the same time a lodger moves into a house owned by an elderly couple...with a fair-haired daughter. His actions are strange and arouse suspicion. Could he be The Avenger?—grantss

In London, the notorious serial-killer The Avenger kills his seventh victim, all of them women with curled golden hair and on Tuesdays. A witness says that he is a tall man with a scarf covering his face. The housewife Mrs. Bunting lives with her husband and her daughter, the fashion model Daisy, who is the girlfriend of the Police Detective Joe in a three-floor house. When Mrs. Bunting rents a room to a Lodger, he pays one month in advance and asks to remove the pictures from the wall. Soon he befriends Daisy, but Mrs. Bunting suspects that he is The Avenger.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Details

Keywords
  • detective
  • serial killer
  • romantic rivalry
  • angry mob
  • lodger
Genres
  • Thriller
  • Mystery
  • Crime
  • Drama
Release date Feb 13, 1927
Motion Picture Rating (MPA) Not Rated
Countries of origin United Kingdom
Language None
Filming locations Victoria Embankment, Westminster, London, England, UK
Production companies Gainsborough Pictures Carlyle Blackwell Productions

Box office

Budget $12000
Gross worldwide $83568

Tech specs

Runtime 1h 32m
Color Black and White
Sound mix Silent
Aspect ratio 1.33 : 1

Synopsis

A young blonde woman, her golden hair illuminated, screams. She is the seventh victim of a serial killer known as "The Avenger", who targets young blonde women on Tuesday evenings.

That night, Daisy Bunting (June Tripp), a blonde model, is at a fashion show when she and the other showgirls hear the news. The blonde girls are horrified; hiding their hair with dark wigs or hats. Daisy laughs at their fears, and returns home to her parents, Mr and Mrs Bunting, and her policeman sweetheart, Joe (Malcolm Keen); they have been reading about the crime in the newspaper.

A handsome young man (Ivor Novello), bearing a strong resemblance to the description of the murderer, arrives at the house and asks about the room for rent. Mrs. Bunting (Marie Ault) shows him the room, which is decorated with portraits of beautiful young blond women. The man is rather secretive, which puzzles Mrs. Bunting. However he willingly pays her a month's rent in advance, and asks only for a little to eat. Mrs. Bunting is surprised to see that the lodger is turning all the portraits around to face the wall -- he politely requests that they be removed. Daisy comes in to remove the portraits, and an attraction begins to form between Daisy and the lodger. The women return downstairs, where they hear the lodger's heavy footsteps as he paces the floor.

The relationship between Daisy and the reclusive lodger gradually becomes serious, and Joe, newly assigned to the Avenger case, begins to resent this. The following Tuesday, Mrs. Bunting is awoken late at night by the lodger leaving the house. She attempts to search his room, but a small cabinet is locked tight. In the morning, another blonde girl is found dead, just around the corner.

The police observe that the murders are moving towards the Buntings' neighborhood. Mrs. Bunting tells her husband that she believes the lodger is the Avenger, and the two try to prevent Daisy spending time with him. The next Tuesday night, Daisy and the lodger sneak away for a late-night date. Joe tracks them down and confronts them; Daisy breaks up with Joe. Joe begins to piece together the events of the previous weeks, and convinces himself that the lodger is indeed the murdering Avenger.

With a warrant in hand, and two fellow officers in tow, Joe returns to search the lodger's room. They find a leather bag containing a gun, a map plotting the location of the Avenger's murders, newspaper clippings about the attacks, and a photograph of a beautiful blonde woman. Joe recognizes this woman as the Avenger's first victim. The lodger is arrested, despite Daisy's protests, but he manages to run off into the night. Daisy goes out and finds him, handcuffed, coat-less, and shivering. He explains that the woman in the photograph was his sister, a beautiful debutante murdered by the Avenger at a dance she had attended; he had vowed to his dying mother that he would bring the killer to justice.

Daisy takes the lodger to a pub and gives him brandy to warm him, hiding his handcuffs with a cloak. The locals, suspicious of the pair, pursue them, quickly gathering numbers until they are a veritable lynch mob. The lodger is surrounded and beaten, while Daisy and Joe, who have just heard the news from headquarters that the real Avenger has been caught, try in vain to defend him. When all seems lost, a paperboy interrupts with the news that the real Avenger has been arrested. The mob releases the lodger, who falls into Daisy's waiting arms. Some time later the lodger is shown to have fully recovered from his injuries and he and Daisy are happily living together as a couple.

Source: Wikipedia

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