i wonder if this would be identifiable a a hitchcock movie if it weren not identify a such . maybe . it a a few innovative touch anyway although it often a little primitive . for one thing it a theme a serial murderer in a comfortably bourgeois set that hitchcock would return to from time to time . frenzy and for instance and and shadow of a doubt . but this isn not really typical in that the late hitchcock would have complicate the story and or juiced it up and by have the innocent eponymous lodger guilty of something or other maybe just have a closet full of lady garment . a it be and he make ivor novello a bit odd look and give him effete gesture and more makeup than the other men and suggest that he gay . other character refer to him a queer ( in the old fashioned sense of quirky ) and say of him that he not keen on the lady . ( ivor novello be himself gay . ) there also a scene in which a sexy young girl be happily take a bath while the lodger try to sneak into the bathroom . shade of psycho . and when the lodger be pace back and forth in his upstairs room and the family look up at the ceiling at the jiggling chandelier and the ceiling become transparent so we can see the shoe of the suspect . oh and it not elegant and but it be original . hitchcock be try something new even then . then too and there be a scene in a kind of boutique . be that the right word . a fancy dress shop where the heroin model . the prissy look lodger be seat between two doll in cloche hat i be afraid i be guess again and one of them put an unlit cigarette in her mouth and wait for the smooth gentleman to light it for her and and maybe buy her that smash dress too . but the lodger have notice that well and to be frank the woman bare knee be on display and the flapper . so and get this and star straight ahead and he take out his lighter and flick it light and and move it to the side so she can reach it . then he disengage himself and stand up and and walk off and to her irritation . it be not necessary to do the scene in that particular fashion but it the kind of thing hitchcock would dream up and a small but tell detail . hitchcock make his cameo in the crowd of people try to clobber the lodger and who be hang up on a fence by his handcuff . ( christian symbolism . i doubt it . ) hitchcock presence be clear enough in still shot but the print i saw be so old and scratchy half the scene be obscure . why do not hitchcock make an outright movie about jack the ripper instead of this one and with an innocent avenger . we never find out who or what the real murderer be avenge . come to think of it and we never even see him . maybe hitch wasn not too fond of period picture . the few that he make be anything but hit . hitch make a movie set in 1885. what next . hitch remake the shootout at the ok corral . hitch do a biography of moses . nah . he have a pretty good sense of his talent and their limitation . when he misjudge them it be usually in the matter of technique and not subject . worth see . in fact and an interesting story .