I like more and more watching silent movies. The lack of speech was making the actors look for other ways of expressing themselves and today their facial and body language resemble the art of mimes. It also made directors search for better visuals to compensate the absence of the spoken text. Such a master of visuals as Hitchcock was not handicapped by the lack of sound, and one may argue that some of the great horror scenes in his later movies could be part of silent movies as well.<br /><br />'The Lodge' was the first film to be considered a complete fully feature by Hitchcock. The story retraces the Ripper case, which by the time when the film was made was still present in the living memory of many London inhabitants. In the foggy atmosphere of many of the British films of Hitchcock a couple of characters well known in the later films of the master show-up - the man whose non-normative behavior makes of him the obvious suspect and the maid who falls for the man and trusts him despite all the logic of facts presented to the viewer and adopted by the rest of the characters. First timers in Hitchcock's films are the vertically filmed staircase, the threatening shadow on the wall and the girl in the bathroom - it will take another thirty years to bring the last two together in the memorable scene in 'Psycho'.<br /><br />For all the visual suspense the film lacks thrill in action and the ending is awfully conventional. It is said that Hitchcock wanted another ending for his film, maybe this was the descent-from-cross like scene where the hero is saved at the last moment from the threats of a lynching mob. This or some other ending would have made better a film which is still remarkable for its visual power.