The Woman in the Window | |
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Directed by | Fritz Lang |
Screenplay by | Nunnally Johnson |
Based on | Once Off Guard (1942) by J. H. Wallis |
Produced by | Nunnally Johnson |
Starring | Edward G. Robinson Joan Bennett Raymond Massey Dan Duryea |
Cinematography | Milton R. Krasner |
Edited by | Gene Fowler Jr. Marjorie Fowler |
Music by | Arthur Lange |
Production company | |
Distributed by | RKO Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 99 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Woman in the Window is a 1944 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang and starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, and Dan Duryea. It tells the story of a middle-aged psychology professor [2] who murders in self-defense the lover of a young femme fatale he just met while his family is on vacation. [3]
Based on J. H. Wallis' 1942 novel Once Off Guard, the story features two surprise twists at the end. Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, having written the script for The Grapes of Wrath (1940), was invited by International Pictures to a picture deal, and The Woman in the Window was chosen as its premiere project. There have been rumours that Lang substituted the film's dream ending in place of the originally scripted suicide ending to conform with the moralistic Production Code of the time. However, Lang claimed that it was his idea when asked directly in an interview. [4]
The term "film noir" originated as a genre description in part because of The Woman in the Window. [5]
After college professor Richard Wanley sends his wife and two children off on vacation, he goes to his club to meet friends. Next door, Wanley sees a striking oil portrait of Alice Reed in a storefront window. He and his friends talk about the beautiful painting and its subject. Wanley stays at the club and reads Song of Songs . When he leaves, Wanley stops at the portrait and meets Reed, who is standing near the painting watching people gaze at it. Reed convinces Wanley to join her for drinks.
Later, they go to Reed's home, but an unexpected visit from her rich clandestine lover Claude Mazard, known to Reed initially only as Frank Howard, leads to a fight in which Wanley kills Mazard in self-defense. Wanley and Reed conspire to cover up the murder, and Wanley disposes of Mazard's body in the country. However, Wanley leaves many clues, and there are a number of witnesses. One of Wanley's friends from the club, district attorney Frank Lalor, has knowledge of the investigation, and Wanley is invited back to the crime scene as Lalor's friend but not as a suspect. On several occasions, Wanley slips and says things that seem to indicate that he may know more about the murder than he should, but Lalor does not suspect Wanley.
As the police gather more evidence, Reed is blackmailed by Heidt, a crooked ex-cop who had been hired to follow Mazard. Wanley and Reed discuss the problem, and he concludes that the best way to deal with a blackmailer is to kill him. Wanley gives Reed prescription medicine in powder form for the murder. When Heidt arrives to collect his extorted payment, he suggests that she leave the country with him in exchange for forgetting about the crime. Reed plays along, but Heidt is suspicious when she insists he drink from his tainted cocktail. He angrily takes the money and leaves after deducing her plan. Reed calls Wanley to tell him of the failed attempt, causing him to overdose on the remaining prescription powder in a suicide attempt.
Meanwhile, Heidt is killed in a shootout immediately after leaving Reed's home, and police believe that Heidt is Mazard's murderer. Reed, seeing that the police have killed Heidt, races to her home to call Wanley, who is slumped over in his chair and apparently dies. In a match cut, Wanley awakens in his chair at his club, and he realizes that the entire ordeal was a dream in which employees from the club were the main characters. As he steps out on the street in front of the painting, a woman asks Wanley for a light. He adamantly refuses and runs down the street.
As in Lang's Scarlet Street (1945), Robinson plays a lonely middle-aged man and Duryea and Bennett co-star as the criminal elements. The two films also share the same cinematographer (Milton R. Krasner) and several supporting actors.
In the final scene, Robinson wore a tear-away suit with his original suit underneath. The crew changed the set behind him to complete the return to his club while Robinson remained in the chair.
When the film was released, the staff at Variety magazine lauded the film and wrote, "Nunnally Johnson whips up a strong and decidedly suspenseful murder melodrama in Woman in the Window. The producer, who also prepared the screenplay (from the novel Once off Guard by J.H. Wallis), continually punches across the suspense for constant and maximum audience reaction. Added are especially fine timing in the direction by Fritz Lang and outstanding performances by Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey and Dan Duryea." [6]
The film holds a 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes as of May 2022. [7] In August 2015, the online entertainment magazine Paste named the film the best film noir of all time. [8]
At the 18th Academy Awards, The Woman in the Window was nominated for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture for Hugo Friedhofer and Arthur Lange. However, Miklós Rózsa won the award for Spellbound (1945). [9]
Friedrich Christian Anton Lang, better known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States. One of the best-known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. He has been cited as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.
Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian actor, known for his commanding, stage-trained voice. For his lead role in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Massey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He reprised his role as Lincoln on television and in How the West Was Won (1962). Among his other well-known roles were Dr. Gillespie in the NBC television series Dr. Kildare (1961–1966), John Brown in Santa Fe Trail (1940) and Seven Angry Men (1955), Abraham Farlan in A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).
Scarlet Street is a 1945 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang. The screenplay concerns two criminals who take advantage of a middle-aged painter in order to steal his artwork. The film is based on the French novel La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardière, which had been previously dramatized on stage by André Mouëzy-Éon, and cinematically as La Chienne (1931) by director Jean Renoir.
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Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film, and television actress, one of three acting sisters from a show-business family. Beginning her career on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 films from the era of silent films, well into the sound era. She is best remembered for her film noir femme fatale roles in director Fritz Lang's films—including Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945)—and for her television role as matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard in the gothic 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows, for which she received an Emmy nomination in 1968.
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The Unsuspected is a 1947 American mystery film noir directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Claude Rains, Audrey Totter, Ted North, Constance Bennett, Joan Caulfield, and Hurd Hatfield. The film was based on the 1946 novel of the same title by Charlotte Armstrong. The screenplay was co-written by Bess Meredyth, who was married to director Curtiz.
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The Black Vampire is a 1953 Argentine film noir directed by Román Viñoly Barreto, starring Olga Zubarry and Roberto Escalada. It is inspired by Fritz Lang's M.
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