Did the famous dress-designer Dolly Tree make an appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger? On watching the film closely (once again) I saw something that had not registered before – a rather tantalising and interesting visual connection.
The mannequin parade (shown twice) was filmed at the Islington studio in June 1926 and all the gowns, estimated to be worth £10,000 at the time, were supplied by Peron Couture. The proprietor Jean Peron arrived in person at the studio to supervise the scenes. Since Dolly Tree was chief designer, and by some accounts an investor in Peron Couture, it is highly likely that the gowns displayed were created by her. I have placed this side-story in context of the making of The Lodger in my book London’s Hollywood.
Interestingly, one of the models, in the first dress parade, who proceeds Daisy (June Tripp) descending the stairs to the onlookers, was a striking lady wearing an elegant two-piece suit, smoking a cigarette and with slicked-backed dark hair.
One of the models in the mannequin parade from The Lodger (1926)
There is a photograph of Dolly Tree wearing the exact same suit and photographed at exactly the same time. Her hair is bobbed but another photograph from the same shoot shows her with slick-backed hair.
The resemblance to the known photo of Dolly Tree in the suit and the mannequin on screen wearing the same dress is quite uncanny. Could it be that she was also supervising the models with Peron in the studio and was asked to be one of the models? She of course knew Alfred Hitchcock as they had worked together on Woman to Woman in 1923 and prior to her career as a dress designer she had been an actress so the connection is quite plausible.
Thus, it might be likely that not only did Hitchcock himself have a cameo appearance in The Lodger but also Dolly Tree.
However, herein also lies another interesting conundrum about the dates for the filming of The Lodger and the controversy that ensued as Balcon attempted to get the film released. Filming had been conducted over a six-week period and was completed by the end of April 1926. Thereafter, the film had been cut and assembled for a private viewing and, as we know, C.M. Woolf, the distributor, did not approve and wanted to shelve the film. But Balcon, with the help of Ivor Montague, made revisions to the footage. Since the mannequin parade was filmed in June, this must have been one of the ‘new’ and ‘major’ additions, that swayed Woolf’s opinion to finally schedule a release.
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