Hear the Orpheum’s original Wurlitzer accompanying The Lodger on May 25
The theatre’s organ was installed in 1927—the same year Alfred Hitchcock released his first thriller, about a Jack the Ripper–esque killer
(Left to right) Original movie poster for The Lodger, Ivor Novello
As part of Silent Movie Mondays, Vancouver Civic Theatres presents The Lodger at the Orpheum on May 25 at 7:30 pm
IT’S ALWAYS FASCINATING to take a deep dive into the history of long-running Vancouver venues. They don’t get much more venerable than the Orpheum, but here’s a fun fact: the theatre at 601 Smithe Street was once known as the New Orpheum.
The first Orpheum was just a couple of blocks away on the 700 block of Granville Street. It originally opened in 1891 as the Vancouver Opera House, later becoming a vaudeville theatre and then a cinema under various names (including the Lyric). If it were still around today, the original Orpheum would be one of the oldest buildings in the city, and surely one of the most elegant—but it was demolished in the late 1960s to make way for a shopping mall, which was a very, very Vancouver fate to befall it.
What we know as the Orpheum today opened in 1927 as both a vaudeville hall and a movie palace. Fortuitous timing, as that was arguably the greatest year for films up to that point. Among the releases that year were Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Abel Gance’s Napoleon, Clarence Badger’s It (starring Clara Bow, the original “It Girl”), Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer (one of the first “talkies”, starring Al Jolson), and Alfred Hitchcock’s Downhill.
Alfred Hitchcock in the 1920s
It was a big year for Hitchcock, as ’27 also saw the release of The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, based on Marie Belloc Lowndes’s novel about a Jack the Ripper–esque serial killer known only as the Avenger. The great Ivor Novello plays the titular lodger, whose boarding-house landlords become convinced is the murderer.
The Lodger was Hitchcock’s first thriller, laying the groundwork for the rest of his career—and, indeed, an entire film genre.
Closing this season of Vancouver Civic Theatres’s popular Silent Movie Mondays series, the Orpheum will host a screening of The Lodger, with organist Koos van Nieuwkoop providing musical accompaniment on the theatre’s original 1927 Wurlitzer.
Ticketholders can attend a pre-show performance by the Gatsby Strutters Jazz Band in the West Coast Lounge. Following the screening, Keith Blackmore of the Vancouver Film School will lead a discussion on the film’s place in cinema history, joined by special guest Katharine Montagu. 
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