The Woman in the Window (MGM Film Noir)
by Fritz Lang
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dan Duryea, Edmund Breon, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond MasseyDirector: Fritz Lang
Brand: ROBINSON,EDWARD G
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Black & White, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-07-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Woman in the Window (MGM Film Noir)
Movie Review: early Lang noir plays around with the style while the style was just getting going
Summary: 5 Stars
** Some SPOILERS contained in this review which I feel are unavoidable **
It's interesting in retrospect that Fritz Lang, the director more than any other associated with the shadowy and deterministic world of film noir started off his noir period with this (relatively) sunny, funny, and even playful film that seems to poke fun at the whole criminal-detective genre all the while offering a riveting example of it. I suspect that most viewers won't guess the "twist" ending on their first viewings, but careful rewatches show it to be fairly logical and not the throw-you-for-a-loop that some less-kind viewers have seen it as.
Professor of Psychology Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) is seen giving a lecture on the psychology of murder, after which he sees his wife and kids off for their weekend in the country, and then goes to meet a couple of old friends at his club, just outside of which he admires a mysterious portrait painting of a beautiful young woman. One of his friends is a District Attorney (Raymond Massey) and the talk amongst the group inevitably turns to such subjects as crime, their growing infirmities as they move through middle age, the dangers of too much alcohol, the desires of infirm flesh and minds. Wanley retires to a favorite chair to read, desiring to be reminded when it is 10:30.
At the appointed hour, the Professor leaves the club, pausing once more to admire the mysterious portrait - but this time encountering the model who posed for it, the equally beautiful Alice Reed (Joan Bennett). Having had a little too much, the Professor unwisely accompanies Miss Reed to her apartment to look at more paintings - but they are unfortunately surprised by her lover, "Frank", a fight ensues, and Frank is dead with scissors in the back. The calm and rational Professor must now think through the best way for the two of them to beat the rap, disguise the crime, dispose of the body....but of course his friend the District Attorney is involved, as is blackmailer Heidt (Dan Duryea). Soon it appears there may be more blood on Wanley's hands, and can he really trust Miss Reed, who he has only known for hours? It all seems rather absurd...and perhaps it is.
The suspense keeps building - at every moment the Professor stays calm, though Miss Reed gets more and more upset, but at every moment the noose seems to get closer - and Wanley himself helps to tighten it as he keeps making strange, knowing comments in front of DA and police. Yet he appears too calm, and everything seems just a little too by the book, so it might strike us as a little too obvious when he finally chooses to take just a bit too much of his powerful heart medicine, and we see him slumped over in his chair, apparently....dreaming. He gets up, exits the club, can't help but notice the painting, but this time when a beautiful model walks up to him, he knows better than to stop and get involved in what might be just a moment's conversation...or an adventure ending in the gallows!
What's terrific here most of all is the playing around with conventions both of the kinds of characters we associate with these films - Massey's DA in particular seems like he's in on the whole `joke' at various points, and the subject that Robinson teaches, psychology, plays into both his own psychology as he coolly tries to find a way out of the mess - and that of the filmmakers and viewers, as we cast our critical gazes on the story and ultimately might decide that it's all a little too pat. Of course it is, and the film acknowledges this more than once as Robinson seems almost eager to give himself away - but it always just gets to the brink of self-parody, never quite crossing it; if this is among the most self-conscious of films noir, it's also one of the most fun to re-watch and re-analyze, even after one knows the gimmick.
Superbly photographed, very much a "Hollywood-New York" film, done all on sets, but in this case the artificial reality of it all affords the dream-logic of the film a perfect setting. It's nice to see Robinson play someone largely competent, a nice guy caught up by circumstance; Bennett, too, is more a "normal" character than usual. Duryea's usual greasiness and Massey's sardonic humor round things out nicely; certainly up to the director's usual standards. Followed the next year by Lang's SCARLET STREET with the same three principal cast members (Bennett, Robinson, Duryea) and director of photography (Milton Krasner).
The solid KINO DVD release looks great, but offers nothing in the way of extras.
Summary of The Woman in the Window (MGM Film Noir)
No Description Available.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 10-JUL-2007
Media Type: DVD
Fritz Lang did his best work in Hollywood throughout the 1940s, and The Woman in the Window ranks among his best films from that period. Equally adept at crafting first-rate Westerns and melodramatic thrillers, Lang returned to the latter category for The Woman in the Window, a deliciously devious follow-up to 1944's Ministry of Fear and a near-perfect companion piece to Lang's 1945 follow-up, Scarlet Street. Adapted by producer/screenwriter Nunnally Johnson from J.H. Wallis's novel Once Off Guard, this briskly paced and brilliantly plotted thriller begins with a chance encounter between mild-mannered psychology professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) and Alice Reed (Joan Bennett), the stylishly alluring subject of a portrait that Wanley has dreamily admired in a window near the men's club where he socializes with a savvy District Attorney (Raymond Massey) and a friendly physician (Edmund Breon). When Alice invites Wanley to her apartment for casual drinks and conversation, Wanley is forced to kill an intruder, and his subsequent cover-up leads to a nail-biting plot in which Wanley must feign innocence as he "innocently" participates in the D.A.'s investigation with a homicide detective.
Lang was an expert at turning the screws of suspense, and while Johnson's screenplay tempers its convenient coincidences with well-written characters, Robinson's increasing desperation is the engine that drives the plot. When a sleazy blackmailer (Dan Duryea) squeezes Wanley and Reed for every penny they've got, The Woman in the Window winds up to a fever pitch, with a "twist" ending that's either a cop-out or clever, depending on your tolerance for now-familiar surprises. As renowned critic Pauline Kael astutely noted, The Woman in the Window has "the logic and plausibility of a nightmare," and Lang surely enjoyed the superbly cast trio of Robinson, Bennett, and Duryea, for he invited them back for Scarlet Street just a few months later. And speaking of murder, check out the kid playing Robinson's son in one of the opening scenes: that's future real-life murder-conspiracy suspect Bobby (Robert) Blake (subsequently acquitted), at the innocent age of 10. --Jeff Shannon
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