Director Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller was a box office success that put him on the path to become “the master of suspense.” Ivor Novello stars in the title role as a mysterious man who rents a room in London; as local women fall prey to a Jack the Ripper-type killer, the lodger comes under increasing suspicion. In the first of his trademark cameos, Hitchcock appears in the newsroom scene a few minutes into the film.