Abandoned by her maidservant in an isolated country house, a mother must protect herself and her baby from an invading tramp while her husband races home in a stolen car to save them.
Direction
Lois Weber co-invented the split-screen phone call here.
Editing
Rapid cross-cutting that Hitchcock later stole from.
Acting
Weber's silent screaming still feels viscerally modern.
Director
Lois Weber
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Lois Weber was Universal's highest-paid director in 1916, male or female, and ran her own studio.
This film essentially created the 'woman in peril' subgenre that would dominate horror for a century — made by the very women it would later exploit.
US
