The mysterious lodger, under suspicion as a serial killer, becomes the first in a long line of heroes who struggle to prove their innocence, while the landlady’s daughter Daisy is the first of the ‘Hitchcock blondes’.

The film, his third as a director, was an instant and enduring success; it now has the enhancement of a restored print and a strong new musical score. As on all the early films, the credits are brief, but they record four collaborators who were crucial in the forming of the young Hitchcock: producer Michael Balcon; editor Ivor Montagu, who helped introduce him to German and Soviet film-making; assistant director Alma Reville, who soon became his wife; and the experienced Eliot Stannard, who scripted all of Hitchcock’s silent films, providing the solid constructional framework for which he always relied on others.

Screening as part of The Genius of Hitchcock: Part One (December 9th – 30th).

A restoration by the BFI National Archive in association with ITV Studios Global Entertainment, Network Releasing and Park Circus Films. Principal restoration funding provided by The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and The Film Foundation, and Simon W Hessel. Additional funding provided by British Board of Film Classification, Deluxe 142, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, and Ian & Beth Mill.