Edward G. Robinson

Joan Bennett

Raymond Massey

Edmund Breon

Dan Duryea

Thomas E. Jackson

Dorothy Peterson

Robert Blake

Arthur Loft

Frank Dawson

Iris Adrian

Brandon Beach

Paul Bradley

Don Brodie

Claire Carleton

James Carlisle

Eddy Chandler

Freddie Chapman

Tom Dillon

Alec Craig

Hal Craig

Joe Devlin

Ralph Dunn

Bess Flowers

Jack Gardner

Jack Gargan

James Harrison

Fred Graham

Tom Hanlon

Harry Hayden

Fred Hueston

Sheldon Jett

Jack W. Johnston

Donald Kerr

Anne Loos

George McFarland

Frank McLure

Charles Meakin

Frank Melton

Frank Mills

Harold Minjir

Frances Morris

Wedgwood Nowell

Anne O'Neal

Louis Payne

Dave Pepper

Fred Rapport

Alexander Pollard

Scott Seaton

Arthur Space

Wyndham Standing

Larry Steers

Fritz Lang

Nunnally Johnson

J.H. Wallis

Arthur Lange

Hugo Friedhofer

Charles Maxwell

Milton Krasner

Marjorie Fowler

Gene Fowler Jr.

Thomas Pratt

Duncan Cramer

Julia Heron

Muriel King

Richard Harlan

Paul K. Lerpae

Harry Redmond Jr.

Vernon L. Walker

Harry Davis

Paul Weatherwax

Earl B. Mounce

Ed Henderson

Frank McWhorter

Thriller

Crime

Drama

The Woman in the Window

International Pictures

Christie Corporation

RKO Radio Pictures

United States of America

I was warned of the siren call of adventure. 

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

CinemaSerf

Fritz Lang is at his mischievous best in this cracking noir murder mystery. Genteel professor Edward G. Robinson ("Wanley") retires most evenings to his club with two close friends then as he heads home, passes a gallery which has a women's portrait in the window. On one such evening, whilst admiring it, he meets the lady (Joan Bennett) herself and after a brief chat, ends up back in her apartment where he is discovered by her boyfriend. A fracas ensues and the boyfriend is accidentally killed. Rather stupidly, he agrees with the woman to dispose of the corpse and try to cover it all up. Of course that doesn't work - soon, the cops are getting very close to the truth and she is being blackmailed. He is helplessly trapped between his own basic integrity and the innate charms of this unscrupulous woman. We are never quite sure which way he will turn - and the suspense is delightfully maintained right til the end. Great contributions from an on-form Raymond Massey; a really rather ghastly Dan Duryea and some great, tight photography all help this to be amongst the best of this genre made during the War.

English

Allan Arkush on THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW

Woman in the Window