The greatest movie ever made..!

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Not copyrighted in the U.S.A. where it was released by Amer-Anglo Corp. in 1928. U.K. release through W&F Film Service in September 1926. Original running time: approx. 100 minutes. SYNOPSIS: A new lodger acts suspiciously. Is it possible he's a Jack-the-Ripper killer?NOTES: Re-made, again with Novello in the lead, by director Maurice Elvey in 1932. Titled The Phantom Fiend in the U.S. Other re-makes: 1944 (John Brahm directing Laird Cregar); 1953 (Jack Palance directed by Hugo Fregonese, titled Man in the Attic); 2008 (Shane West directed by David Ondaatje). COMMENT: Although it no longer seems as innovative as when first released and although tension is somewhat undermined by the obvious fact that Ivor Novello could not possibly turn out to be the killer (even though the script most disappointingly presents no alternatives), The Lodger still packs enough ambiance and atmosphere to hold a modern audience's attention, especially in its original tinted version. Novello's "acting" is more "posing" than performing, and the other players are sometimes a mite too enthusiastic in their pantomiming, but these styles are pretty much par for 1926. Aside from the lavishly staged climax, production values are by no means over-extensive. (AVAILABLE on DVD in St Clair Vision's Hitchcock Collection. Quality rating: 7 out of ten).

This is a film I've only heard and read a little about - not to mention seeing some stills and tiny clips - well, I'm finally viewing it for the for the first time in my life and I have to say this is an impressive film. The words that come to my mind are beautiful and eerie as two descriptive words for this gem. I understand why everyone is bragging about since I've seen it. I have to say it's too bad this film is not an early talkie because this would make a fantastic one - but something about this movie being silent seems to make the film all that more eerie.I tell ya if you want see any silent film at all - watch this one! While this film is not considered to be a horror film, I would put The Lodger (1927) in the class with Nosferatu (1922), London After Midnight (1927) or even Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920). I like this Hitchcock silent film so much better than his film The Ring (1927).Great movie - I've enjoyed watching it! 9/10

Near the end of the silent era, Alfred Hitchcock marshaled the format's strengths to create his first masterpiece. 1927's "The Lodger," a dark adapted tale concerning a London serial murderer, employs the kinds of creative camera angles and major plot twists that would later become hallmarks of Hitchcock's work. Consider, for example, the ways Hitchcock signifies vertical space in the lodging house where most of the action takes place. The titular lodger, a pale, staring, partially-obscured figure who could have been imported from a German expressionist horror film of the early part of the decade, lives upstairs. The landlady and her husband, great sources of physical comedy as they clutch each other or trade off yawns, live downstairs. Their beautiful daughter and her detective suitor spend most of their time on the middle floor. When the lodger is the subject of other characters' thoughts or conversation, the camera cuts or pans or pulls back from them to reveal a light fixture that sways almost imperceptibly due to his movements above. A glass floor is also employed to look up at the lodger's feet as he paces the floor. When the lodger or another character climbs or descends the stairs, the camera may look down the middle of the stairwell from directly above. This technique is used in one of the movie's most dramatic sequences, when the lodger appears to leave the house to commit a murder. The landlady listens in terror to every footfall and shutting door, then climbs the stairs to snoop around. A hand on the railing winding up each flight is seen from a nice, symmetrical, overhead viewpoint that a real person in the house could not attain. The effect of seeing feet and hands from dramatic and unnatural angles is exciting, dizzying, and eerie. It helps to create the awe and tension that Hitchcock loves to instill in an audience. He toys with extreme close-ups as well, having the participants in a kiss practically kiss the camera lens. Though not the first director to use intense emotionality or surreal, dreamlike imagery, Hitchcock used them unabashedly to make his first thriller a memorable one.Every role in "The Lodger" is strongly conveyed without too much reliance on dialogue cards. An early action by the antagonist feels spot-on for a serial killer: in his rented room, he turns around every portrait of a woman so that it faces the wall. The heroine's bathtub scene, in which she undresses behind a veil of steam and wiggles her toes in the water, is typical of a pre-code film, but it doesn't add much to the plot. Like so much else in a Hitchcock film, its primary purpose is to keep the audience entertained. Yet there is a lot of clever character work done with her and the detective protagonist, who tries hamfistedly and mostly without success to endear himself to her. She seems to be in a bind regardless of the story's outcome: either she will be murdered by the villain (when he kisses her, we see rapture in her eyes), or she will settle for a goofball husband (when he kisses her, we see boredom and resignation there). The major twist near the end, while impossible to predict in exact detail, is disappointingly arbitrary, but it paves the way for a resolution of the triangular character drama.The final shot is a bit unsettling and ambiguous. As the happy couple kisses in the foreground, the killer's catalyst, a marquee sign advertising "Golden Curls," blinks on and off in the foggy distance. Whether this is meant to be darkly funny, or ominous, or whether it merely seems ominous because of the atmosphere that Hitchcock successfully creates for the film, I do not know.

I don't know if this is first actual film as writer and director. Anyway the film's dark plot is about London's serial killer known as the Avenger. The landlady and the landlord suspect the lodger could be the Avenger. This film is dark but definitely worth watching just to see how he evolved as a director. The cast includes Ivor Novello as the mysterious lodger. Up until film, almost all actors and actresses had only stage experience. The early silent films offered another to way act for better salaries. This silent film is actually an early thriller classic. The cast do a terrific job especially Ivor Novello. The film might have been inspired by the Jack the Ripper case in London, England.