Abstract
ABSTRACT The article discusses the London boarding house as setting and trope, in film, on stage and in literature, during the silent period. It identifies recurrent character types – notably, parsimonious and resentful landladies, resourceful skivvies and residents, both temporary and permanent, who are down on their luck and down at heel. Significantly, the boarding house recurrently displays a particular mise-en-scène. Films covered include Patricia Brent, Spinster (1919), Tilly of Bloomsbury (1921), Not for Sale (1924), Underground (1928), Daydreams (1928), The Vagabond Queen (1929) and A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929). Patrick Hamilton, this article suggests, is the pre-eminent figure in boarding house literature, from Craven House (1926) to Slaves of Solitude (1947). It also discusses returns to this London territory produced retrospectively and subsequent treatments of boarding house material, reinforcing an already established pattern.
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