Critics reviews

Not surprising, then, that [Hitchcock] looked back on The Lodger with affection, calling it "the first true Hitchcock movie." Not only is it a suspense thriller but it foreshadows, in a good many of its plot details, themes and preoccupations that are now recognized as key elements of Hitchcock's cinematic world

Nonetheless, the murder of one of the Golden Curls dancers (Eve Gray) shows Hitchcock at his suspenseful best... The scene unspools like any fateful encounter, building from the stage door to a secluded square where Gray fumbles with the undone buckle of her shoe. The dreadful build-up and horrible end to this scene, perhaps the best of the film, reflects the economy with which Hitchcock can terrify an audience.

The "story of the London fog" is no whodunit, the mystery is really a MacGuffin to be solved off-screen. No, Das Ewig Weibliche Zieht Uns Hinan is the theme, beauty protected and destroyed, shot fittingly with a Germanic eye for Murnau and Lang. A world of shadows and staircases and manacles, where death arrives at a debutante's ball via the flip of a light switch. Yet how dreary "normalcy" is, how strongly the fear of the unknown goes together with the yearning to step into the beast's lair.

Alfred Hitchcock was a sound filmmaker, and his most famous silent film, THE LODGER, offers ample proof: at every step it attempts to circumvent the lack of a synchronized soundtrack. Sounds are evoked, alluded to, inferred: a screaming blonde, a transparent floor showing us that someone is pacing upstairs. It's a dream only RCA Photophone could fully realize—he's shooting silent but thinking sound.

Not a great film, but a remarkable one, with Hitchcock at his most "innovative," shooting through plate-glass floors and generally one-upping the expressionist cliches of the period. The story bears a strong resemblance to Frenzy.