Pseudo-Hitch intriguing drama about a woman who gradually realizes she is married to a killer and may be next on his list .This classic suspense film contains emotion , intrigue , chills, and evocative scenarios . When a lovely as well as wealthy heiress named Celia (Joan Bennett) spends a fun holiday she meets a good-looking guy called Mark Lamphere and ends up falling in love with him . Later on , she marries the widower (Michael Redgrave's first American film) and finds out weird happenings about him . She and her new husband, settle in an ancient mansion on the East coast, she discovers he may want to kill her . Understandably , she wonders what plans he might have for her . The mansion has got a lot of rooms that are replicas of known murder sites . In the tour of the three rooms, Mark Lamphere recounts the tales of three murders, all of which are fictional. However in the first room, he mentions the St Bartholomew's Day massacre and the Guise family in France. The massacre is a real historical event, where French Roman Catholics attacked French Huguenots (Protestants) on 24th of August 1572 resulting in many deaths.
Dazzling Hitch/style suspense movie about a beautiful woman marries a rare man with a shock revelation around every corner their mansion . It packs hallucination , treason , Bennett plays a rich wife trying to help her hubby , well played by Michael Redgrave , who is suffering from amnesia and who might be a murderer too . The picture takes elements from classic Hitchcock films , carrying out a crossover among ¨Suspicion ¨, ¨Spellbound¨ and ¨Rebeca¨ . In fact ,Fritz Lang's attempt to do his version of Rebeca (1940) was a project fraught with disaster. It ran over budget and over schedule, while Lang was at constant loggerheads with his leading lady, Joan Bennett . As it stars the great Joan Bennett , being compellingly directed by Lang ; but it is not as outstanding as their former movies together : ¨Man hunt¨, ¨The woman in the window¨ and ¨Scarlet street¨. Support cast is pretty good such as Anne Revere as Caroline Lamphere , Barbara O'Neil as Miss Robey and Paul Cavanagh as Rick Barrett .
Atmospheric as well as mistly cinematography in black and white by Stanley Cortez . Thrilling and frightening musical score by the classic Miklos Rozsa . The motion picture was professionally directed by Fritz Lang . Lang directed masterfully all kind of genres as Noir cinema as ¨Big heat , Scarlet Street and Beyond a reasonable doubt¨ , Epic as ¨Nibelungs¨, suspense as ¨Secret beyond the door, Clash by night¨ , Western as ¨Rancho Notorious and Return of Frank James ¨ and of course Adventure as ¨Moonfleet¨ .
