"Woman in the Window" ( eng. The Woman in the Window ) is a film in the noir genre shot by Fritz Lang based on the novel "Once Off Guard" by J. H. Wallis. The story of psychology professor Richard Wenley ( Edward G. Robinson ), who met the femme fatale and was fascinated by it [1] .
| Woman in the window | |
|---|---|
| The woman in the window | |
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| Genre | noir , thriller , detective |
| Producer | Fritz lang |
| Producer | Nunnally johnson |
| Author script | Nunnally Johnson , J.H. Wallis |
| In the main cast | Edward J. Robinson , Joan Bennett , Raymond Massey , Edmund Breon , Dan Duria |
| Operator | Milton R. Krasner |
| Composer | Arthur Lange , Hugo Friedhofer , Bruno Mason |
| Film company | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Duration | 99 min. |
| A country |  USA |
| Tongue | English |
| Year | 1944 |
| IMDb | |
The story has two unexpected turns at the end. Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson founded his own independent film company, International Pictures, after a series of successful films based on his scenarios, such as Grapes of Wrath ( 1940 ) and other films by John Ford , and chose Woman in the Window as his first project as part of the company. Fritz Lang replaced the original suicide ending described in the novel with a dream to comply with the Hayes ethical code .
The term “film noir” appeared as a genre description, in particular, because of this film. The term was first applied to American films in French film magazines in 1946 , when Maltese Falcon (1941), Double Insurance (1944), Laura (1944), Killing My Sweet ( 1944) and The Woman in the Window [2] .
Content
Story
After a psychology professor [3] Richard Wenley sends his wife and two children to rest, he goes to his club to meet friends. Nearby, in a shop window, Wenley sees a striking pictorial portrait of Alice Reed ( Joan Bennett ). He and his friends discuss the beauty of the picture. Wenley stays at the club and reads "The Song of Solomon ." When Wenley left the club, he stopped again with a glance at the portrait and saw Alice standing next to the painting. Alice convinces Wenley to join her for a drink. Then they go home to Alice, but the unexpected visit of her rich lover Claude Mazard (Arthur Loft) leads to a fight in which Wenley kills Mazard. After Wenley and Reed decided to hide the murder: Wenley takes away the body of Mazard to the countryside. However, he leaves a lot of evidence, and everything seems to lead to the fact that the evidence will lead to it. One of Wenley's friends at the club, District Attorney Frank Lalore ( Raymond Massey ), knows the details of the investigation and suggests that Wenley visit the crime scene as his friend, but not as a suspect. During the investigation, Lalor collects a lot of information that Heydt, a former cop who worked as a bodyguard for Mazard, is blackmailing Reed. Alice tries to poison Heidt by mixing drugs with alcohol, but he notices something is wrong and takes only money. Reed tells all Wenley, who gets an overdose of drugs. Heidt is shot instantly after he leaves Alice's home, and police believe he is the Mazard killer. Alice runs to her home to call Wenley, who was already asleep in his chair. At the end of the film, Wenley wakes up in his club, sitting in a chair, and realizes that his whole adventure was a dream in which the club’s employees were the main characters. After he went outside, a woman approached him near the portrait and asked a light to light it, but he refused and immediately ran away.
Cast
- Edward G. Robinson - Professor Richard Wenley
- Joan Bennett - Alice Reed
- Raymond Massey - District Attorney Frank Lalore
- Edmund Breon - Dr. Michael Barkstein
- Dan Duria - Heidt / Tim, Doorman
- Thomas E. Jackson - Inspector Jackson from the homicide bureau
- Dorothy Peterson - Mrs. Wenley
- Arthur Loft - Claude Mazard / Frank Howard / Charlie - Cloakroom attendant
- Frank Dawson - Collins - Steward
- Iris Adrian - a woman who asked Richard Wenley a spark
Criticism
When the film was released, the editorial staff of Variety magazine praised the film and wrote the following: “Nunnally Johnson wrote the screenplay for the film Woman in the Window as a melodrama with murder, which caused great concern to the main characters. The producer, who also prepared the screenplay (from the novel “Vrazplokh” by J. H. Wallis), makes the audience be in constant tension through anxiety in the film ( suspense ). And the special addition of the film was the excellent timekeeping in the direction of Fritz Lang and the outstanding performance of such actors as Edward G. Robinson , Joan Bennett , Raymond Massey, Dan Duria ” [4] .
Interesting Facts
As in Lang's Sin Street , a year later, Edward G. Robinson played the role of a lonely middle-aged man, and Joan Bennett and Dan Duria played the role of criminal elements.
See also
- 1944 to the cinema
Notes
- ↑ The Woman in the Window ( Internet ) on the Internet Movie Database .
- ↑ en: Alain Silver , Elizabeth Ward, eds. Film Noir: An An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, page 1, 3rd edition, 1992. Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press . ISBN 0-87951-479-5 .
- ↑ Sheri Chinen Biesen (2005). Blackout: World War II and the origins of film noir. en: Johns Hopkins University Press , ISBN 978-0-8018-8218-0
- ↑ Film review, 1945 // Variety. Last accessed: 2008-04-02.
Links
- The Woman in the Window on the Internet Movie Database
- The Woman in the Window film trailer at YouTube
- Radio Theater : June 25, 1945.
- 26: 1946.