Other films in which Novello starred included Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger, where he played the title character, and Downhill (both in 1927). The British film company Gainsborough Pictures offered Novello a lucrative contract, which enabled him to buy a country house in Littlewick Green, near Maidenhead. He renamed the property 'Redroofs', and he entertained there famously and with little regard for convention. Cecil Beaton, noting the frequent homosexual excesses, coined the phrase, "the Ivor – Noel naughty set".Hoare (1995), p.123 Coward had by now caught up to Novello professionally, despite a joint disaster when Novello starred in Coward's play Sirocco in 1927, which was a débâcle, and closed within a month of opening.Hoare (1995), pp.187–88"The Theatres. Sirocco to be Withdrawn", The Times, 12 December 1927, p. 12 In 1928 Novello starred in the silent adaptation of Coward's much more successful The Vortex, and made his last silent film, A South Sea Bubble. During the late 1920s Novello was the most popular male British film star, and was often dubbed Britain's "handsomest screen actor".Macnab, Geoffrey. "The rise and fall of Ivor Novello", The Guardian, 10 January 2004, accessed 4 June 2020.
Other films in which Novello starred included Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger, where he played the title character, and Downhill (both in 1927). The British film company Gainsborough Pictures offered Novello a lucrative contract, which enabled him to buy a country house in Littlewick Green, near Maidenhead. He renamed the property 'Redroofs', and he entertained there famously and with little regard for convention Cecil Beaton, noting the frequent homosexual excesses, coined the phrase, "the Ivor – Noel naughty set".Hoare (1995), p.123 Coward had by now caught up to Novello professionally, despite a joint disaster when Novello starred in Coward's play Sirocco in 1927, which was a débâcle, and closed within a month of opening.Hoare (1995), pp.187–88"The Theatres. Sirocco to be Withdrawn", The Times, 12 December 1927, p. 12 In 1928 Novello starred in the silent adaptation of Coward's much more successful The Vortex, and made his last silent film, A South Sea Bubble. During the late 1920s Novello was the most popular male British film star, and was often dubbed Britain's "handsomest screen actor"Macnab, Geoffrey. "The rise and fall of Ivor Novello", The Guardian, 10 January 2004 accessed 4 June 2020.