The Woman in the Window

The catastrophe just around the corner is the premise for Fritz Lang's first unabashed film noir. Settling stuffily into middle age, Edward G. Robinson lectures on criminal psychology at Gotham University (est. 1828). One morning he packs his wife and kids onto the train for a summer in Maine, then repairs to his club for dinner, a brandy or two, and a comfortable snooze in a wing-chair.

A portrait in a gallery next door had caught his attention, however, so before heading home he gives it a second glance. Suddenly its beautiful subject (Joan Bennett) looms up behind him, reflected in the glass. They flirt rather formally, stop for a drink, then head back to her apartment under the pretext of viewing more of the artist's work she'd posed for. Suddenly a man Bennett has seeing on the sly with barges in and, enraged, tries to throttle Robinson, who stabs him with scissors. And suddenly Robinson's complacent life lies in shards.

He decides, for the sake of his and Bennett's reputations, to dump the body along a stretch of rural road upstate, then part ways forever with this woman from the window. But, far from a nobody, the murdered man turns out to be a wealthy developer, whose death claims headlines. And his bodyguard (Dan Duryea) pays a visit to Bennett, to blackmail her.

A shrewd and cultivated man caught in the vise of circumstance, Robinson proves his own worst enemy. When fellow club member Raymond Massey, a police inspector, chats casually about the crime, Robinson blurts out details that only the killer could have known. And as the jaws of the vise squeeze ever more tightly, Robinson devises ever more desperate stratagems to hide his guilt and protect Bennett...

While Robinson proves reliably expert, Bennett invests her part with a reserved, almost remote, air that lends to the uncertainty. Her cool contralto beckons, but she plays hard to get. Her arrangements with her dead paramour suggest something sordid but she's not quite the tramp she would be the following year in Scarlet Street (again opposite Robinson and under Lang).

The sure-footed Lang simply uses a public clock down the street from Bennett's brownstone to log in a precise chronology of the fateful night. That befits a plot which leans toward the clockwork, but plausibly so. Or rather, does until just its last few minutes. For all intents and purposes, the movie ends, convincingly and satisfyingly, with Robinson slumped in a chair, clutching a drained glass. But MGM wasn't yet ready for the uncompromising vision of the emergent noir cycle, and must have recoiled in horror. So a whimsical wrap-up was hastily grafted on. Some would argue that, in consequence, the movie falls into the valid subcategory of `oneiric' noir. Others would argue that it's just a craven cop-out, at cross purposes with all that's gone before. Luckily, The Woman in the Window displays enough artistry and integrity that it really doesn't matter all that much either way.

This is a wonderful film noire, a real late night treat, the story may seem a little run of the mill, but there are many twists, turns and red herrings to throw you off, and keep your interest.

The acting is great, Joan Bennett as always is terrific, Edward G Robinson was prolific, and never disappointed.

It moves along quickly, and is never boring at any point. The obvious love or hate moment comes at the end, personally I don't love it, but you must realise it was 1944, the world was at war, people wanted to leave the cinema with a smile on their face, it did make me smile, of course it would never be a tool used nowadays, but things were so different in 1944.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. 9/10.

Woman in the Window (1944)

A methodical movie about a methodical cover-up. Edgar G. Robinson is the perfect actor for a steady, rational man having to face the crisis of a murder, and Fritz Lang, who has directed murderousness before, knows also about darkness and fear. There are no flaws in the reasoning, and if there is a flaw to the movie, it is it's very methodical perfection. Even the flaws are perfect, the mistakes made and how they are shown.

We all at one time or another get away with something, large or small. And this law-abiding man finds himself trapped. He has to succeed, and you think he might. Part of me kept saying, I wouldn't do that, or don't be a fool. But part of me said, it's inevitable, he'll fail, we all would fail. So the movie moves with a steady thoughtful pace. It talks a lot for an American crime film, but it also has the best of night scenes--rainy streets with gleaming dark streets, hallways with glass windows and harsh light, and dark woods (for the body, of course). But there are dull moments, some odd qualities like streets with no parked cars at all, and a leading woman who is a restrained femme fatale, which isn't the best. And then there are twists and suspicions, dodges and subterfuges. And of course Dan Duryea, who makes a great small-time chiseler.

Edward G. and Joan Bennett star in a noirish crime drama that feels almost surreal (with god reason, as the ending makes plain). Robinson is a staid professor whose family is off on a weekend jaunt. He meets an alluring woman who invites him to he apartment for "drinks and." When her psycho boyfriend unexpectedly shows up, the prof ends up killing him during a scuffle. To protect himself and the gal, he gets rid of the body. Then the fun really starts. Edward G. is at the top of his form here, and Bennett is sexy and ever so slightly tawdry, even fully clothed. The ending, which has been used or misused in many movies before and since, here works beautifully. I am surprised I had never seen this particular melodrama until now. I am no spring chicken, and used to be a film critic, to boot.

The Woman in the Window is directed by Fritz Lang and adapted by Nunnally Johnson from the novel "Once off Guard" written by J.H. Wallis. It stars Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey & Dan Duryea. Music is by Arthur Lange and Milton R. Krasner is the cinematographer.

After admiring a portrait of Alice Reed (Bennett) in the storefront window of the shop next to his Gentleman's Club, Professor Richard Wanley (Robinson) is shocked to actually meet her in person on the street. It's a meeting that leads to a killing, recrimination and blackmail.

Time has shown The Woman in the Window to be one of the most significant movies in the film noir cycle. It was part of the original group identified by Cahiers du Cinéma that formed the cornerstone of film noir (the others were The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Laura and Murder My Sweet). Its reputation set in stone, it's a film that boasts many of the key noir ingredients: man meets woman and finds his life flipped upside down, shifty characters, a killing, shadows and low lights, and of course an atmosphere thick with suspense. Yet the ending to this day is divisive and, depending what side of the camp you side with, it makes the film either a high rank classic noir or a nearly high rank classic noir. Personally it bothers me does the finale, it comes off as something that Rod Serling could have used on The Twilight Zone but decided to discard. No doubt to my mind that had Lang put in the ending from the source, this would be a 10/10 movie, for everything else in it is top draw stuff.

At its core the film is about the dangers of stepping out of the normal, a peril of wish fulfilment in middle age, with Lang gleefully smothering the themes with the onset of a devilish fate and the stark warning that being caught just "once off guard" can doom you to the unthinkable. There's even the odd Freudian interpretation to sample. All of which is aided by the excellent work of Krasner, who along with his director paints a shadowy world consisting of mirrors, clocks and Venetian blinds. The cast are very strong, strong enough in fact for Robinson, Bennett and Duryea to re-team with Lang the following year for the similar, but better, Scarlet Street, while Lang's direction doesn't miss a beat.

A great film regardless of the Production Code appeasing ending, with its importance in the pantheon of film noir well deserved. But you sense that watching it as a companion piece to Scarlet Street, that Lang finally made the film that this sort of story deserved. The Woman in the Window: essential but not essentially the best of its type. 8/10