The Passing of the Third Floor Back

The diverse tenants of a London boarding house find their lives transformed by a mysterious and kindly stranger.

Conrad Veidt's arrival at his down-at-heel London digs in this film echoes the dramatic first appearance of Ivor Novello in Hitchcock's The Lodger, made nine years earlier. This is no doubt due to the fact that one of this feature's co-writers was Mrs Hitchcock herself, Alma Reville. The film's female characters are particularly well-observed and, as well as being a terrific story (from the play by Jerome K. Jerome), the film beautifully evokes lower-middle-class life in the 1930s.