The Woman in the Window (MGM Film Noir)
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Actor: Edward G Robinson, Joan BennettBrand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Black & White, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-07-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of The Woman in the Window (MGM Film Noir)
DVD Review: Great Piece for Its Time
Summary: 5 Stars
This began as a rental for me. The film was an extraordinary surprise for me. The story itself took me to an unexpected place, but the some aspects within the story line I found amazing and educational for me. The forensics explained by the police, for instance. I did not think that science was that advanced for that time period. It was just as fascinating to listen to as any CSI episode. Don't watch it with the eyes of the 21st century. Allow yourself to go back and walk with Robinson through his situation. I remember Bennett only from "Dark Shadows" so her performance was a treat.DVD Review: A Window into Lang's Perception
Summary: 4 Stars
If you are looking for movies that offer a vibrant, entertaining, yet cynical take on fate and its relationship to the individual, you need look no further than the filmography of Fritz Lang.
He was probably at his artistic best directing METROPOLIS (1926) and M (1931). His Hollywood output, in comparison, is much more polished, yet much less immediate. THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (1944) is a good example of this. The images are crisp and well-crafted, the screenwriting is good, and the editing is flawless. The notorious last scene merely makes these elements more explicit through the juxtaposition of a less powerful ending. Still, it is ironic that the viewers may find themselves caught in Lang's cynical trap; just as the characters he filmed are seemingly released.
Edward G. Robinson plays Richard Wanley, a fellow who kills a man in self-defense. Problem is, he was having drinks with Joan Bennett (the woman in the title) in her apartment, while his wife and kids were off on vacation. It just wouldn't look good. So begins the crime of removing the body....
Much has already been made of the finale. I would add that I also found Robinson's role (as an assistant professor) equally jarring. He looks rather awkward, to me, in a lecture hall.
I join the many other reviewers in preferring Lang's SCARLET STREET (1945); a reuniting of the principle cast. It is perhaps Lang's best American film. Robinson's role as a milquetoast is so much more believeable, and Dan Duryea is given more room to be villainous. A true work of art that resonates over the years.
But, by all means, see THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, as well. Despite its flaws, it is still miles ahead of many other noir vehicles.
I have no complaints about the MGM DVD sound or picture quality; both were great. I would have liked to have seen some special features though.
DVD Review: Movie Noir Review
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie was excellent. The ending is a real surprise especially in view of the movie summary written on the outside of the box that contained the film. I will definitely watch the movie again.DVD Review: The trap of circumstances
Summary: 4 Stars
The great Expressionist German director Fritz Lang was a natural to direct film noir, and this 1944 thriller is one of his most famous. It features an unusually intelligent cast, headed by Edward G. Robinson, playing a part much closer to his own personality than the sinister gangsters and heavies he usually played. Here he's a gentle middle-aged college psychology professor, who makes one divergence from his safe daily bourgeois routine by accepted the invitation for drinks of a beautiful woman (Joan Bennett) whose painting he admires in a window; before he knows it he's in her swank Manhattan apartment wondering what to do with the body of her violent millionaire lover, whom he has stabbed while defending his life.
Part of the genius of Lang's direction in this film is how he avoids the obvious: the ratcheting up of the tension in this film, as circumstances and a sleazy blackmailer (Duryea), conspire to tighten Robinson's trap, is done very quietly. One of Robinson's best friends is the assistant district attorney(Massey) who prosecutes the case after the millionaire's body is found, and who shares every new bit of evidence with him; Robinson's character often has to explain jokingly to Massey why the suspect's description often sounds so much like him, and Robinson never once seriously slips up. But you can tell the toll all this takes upon his character over time through Robinson's tremendously subtle performance. The film's ending was changed when the Production Code found it too dark, and you'll feel a bit cheated; as revenge, Lang used a much darker ending even than this film's original when he filmed a re-make of Renoir's LA CHIENNE as SCARLET STREET two years later with the same three terrific principal actors (Robinson, Bennett and Duryea), with much wilder and more Expressionistic results. Although SCARLET STREET is a brilliant film in its own way (and features a painting of Joan Bennett in a prominent bit just as this film does), the quieter approach to this film is equally fascinating. The beautiful cinematography by Milton Krasner is gorgeously represented by this MGM Film Noir print: the whole thing looks as if it were filmed yesterday.
DVD Review: Delightful and suspenseful
Summary: 4 Stars
A brief romantic fancy ensnares Professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) in murder and blackmail. There are many funny moments as the professor tries to extricate himself and his beautiful new female friend (Joan Bennett) from this dilemma. Fritz Lang, one of Germany's greatest exports, directs this delightful and suspenseful minor classic. Edward G. Robinson is terrific in his role as the kind-hearted professor.
Description of The Woman in the Window (MGM Film Noir)
In this tense melodrama a meek college professor gets mixed up in murder and blackmail. After his wife and kids leave for vacation in Maine Professor Richard Wanley remains behind on his own. En route to his club he's riveted by a painting he sees in a store window. It's a portrait of a beautiful woman and he's shocked when he realizes that the picture's model--Alice Reed--is standing right next to him. Wanley innocently goes to Reed's apartment to look at other pieces of art when an angry man breaks in. After accusing Alice of cheating on him the stranger attempts to harm the professor. But Wanley defends himself by stabbing his attacker who it turns out is a famous financial promoter. The professor and the model then cover up the crime by dumping the body in the woods. The police eventually do find out about the death and they start an investigation; meanwhile the professor tries desperately to figure out a way out of this mess. Then it turns out that someone else knows what happens...and intends to blackmail Wanley and Reed.System Requirements:Running Time: 99 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA UPC:?027616081070 Manufacturer No:?M108107Fritz Lang did his best work in Hollywood throughout the 1940s, and The Woman in the Window ranks among his best films from that period. Equally adept at crafting first-rate Westerns and melodramatic thrillers, Lang returned to the latter category for The Woman in the Window, a deliciously devious follow-up to 1944's Ministry of Fear and a near-perfect companion piece to Lang's 1945 follow-up, Scarlet Street. Adapted by producer/screenwriter Nunnally Johnson from J.H. Wallis's novel Once Off Guard, this briskly paced and brilliantly plotted thriller begins with a chance encounter between mild-mannered psychology professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) and Alice Reed (Joan Bennett), the stylishly alluring subject of a portrait that Wanley has dreamily admired in a window near the men's club where he socializes with a savvy District Attorney (Raymond Massey) and a friendly physician (Edmund Breon). When Alice invites Wanley to her apartment for casual drinks and conversation, Wanley is forced to kill an intruder, and his subsequent cover-up leads to a nail-biting plot in which Wanley must feign innocence as he "innocently" participates in the D.A.'s investigation with a homicide detective.
Lang was an expert at turning the screws of suspense, and while Johnson's screenplay tempers its convenient coincidences with well-written characters, Robinson's increasing desperation is the engine that drives the plot. When a sleazy blackmailer (Dan Duryea) squeezes Wanley and Reed for every penny they've got, The Woman in the Window winds up to a fever pitch, with a "twist" ending that's either a cop-out or clever, depending on your tolerance for now-familiar surprises. As renowned critic Pauline Kael astutely noted, The Woman in the Window has "the logic and plausibility of a nightmare," and Lang surely enjoyed the superbly cast trio of Robinson, Bennett, and Duryea, for he invited them back for Scarlet Street just a few months later. And speaking of murder, check out the kid playing Robinson's son in one of the opening scenes: that's future real-life murder-conspiracy suspect Bobby (Robert) Blake (subsequently acquitted), at the innocent age of 10. --Jeff Shannon
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