THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW

By a strange coincidence 1944 saw the release of two film noirs starring Edward G Robinson which have some similarities in plot.

In 'Double Indemnity' he plays an insurance investigator who doesn't realise that the salesman he trusts and keeps informed is actually the murderer in the case he is looking into.

In this film, it is Robinson himself who is the murderer who is kept informed as to how the police investigation is proceeding by his friend who happens to be the DA.

But whereas the Billy Wilder picture is a classic and in my opinion the definitive film noir, this Fritz Lang movie is merely entertaining.

Anton Chekhov, had he still been alive in 1944, might have been astonished at how liberally his Chekhov's Gun concept is being applied in this film.

We start off with overhearing part of a psychology lecture by assistant professor Wanley (Robinson) in which he refers to murder in self defence, and sure enough not that long afterwards he himself is committing just such a crime.

Soon after the lecture we get the DA expressing the view that in his experience a moment of foolishness can lead to tragedy, and sure enough the murder is the result of Wanley foolishly going back to the apartment of a woman he meets late at night (his wife and children have gone away for the summer).

When a doctor friend of Wanley's prescribes him some medicine which is also a fast acting poison if taken in a large enough quantity, and is untraceable to boot, it's a cinch that someone is going to die from this later on.

The woman in the window goes by the name of Alice, and she is played by Joan Bennett.  We never learn that much about her except that she models for an artist (hence her portrait in the eponymous window) but judging by her swanky apartment she's getting along just fine.  

The murder victim is a guy who flies into a rage when he discovers Wanley and Alice together and tries to strangle Wanley.  Apparently you can kill someone by stabbing them in the back a few times with a pair of scissors, as Wanley does here.

Wanley hits upon the idea of dumping the body elsewhere in the hope that there's nothing to connect the victim with Alice.  This of course turns out to be a forlorn hope, given that the victim is a prominent businessman, Mazard, who has been conducting an affair with Alice for quite some time. 

But a frustrating thing about the film is that it can't decide how Wanley's downfall should come about. 

At first it looks as though the various clues he has accidentally left for the police to find will eventually lead them to him.

Or another possibility is that Alice might betray him to save her own skin, but although the film teases us that this might happen it turns out to be another dead end.   

No, Wanley's real problem is Heidt (played by nasty Dan Duryea), an ex-cop who was Mazard's bodyguard and therefore knows all about Alice.  He's more than happy to blackmail her.

This is all diverting enough but there isn't any great build-up in dramatic tension, and for a film noir it's lacking in atmosphere, and there's zero passion between Wanley and Alice.  In fact Wanley is a bloodless creature who seems surprisingly calm given the predicament he's in. 

But the ending when it comes has a satisfying neatness to it.  

Heidt, who's wanted for some crime or other, conveniently gets shot dead by the police near Alice's apartment, who conclude that he is Mazard's murderer.

Whew!  Wanley and Alice are off the hook. But unfortunately this good news comes too late for Wanley, because he has gone and taken a large dose of the aforementioned medicine/poison because he can see no other way out.

But what's this?  It transpires that the entire picture (barring a couple of early scenes) was all just a dream that Wanley was having at his club after a few drinks.  

I guess how you feel about the rug being pulled out from under you like this depends on how emotionally invested in the story you were.  Since I wasn't that into the film this 'it was all a dream' ending amused rather than annoyed me.

The whole thing is competently done, with a decent screenplay by Nunnally Johnson, but it never rises to any great heights, and lacks any memorable scenes.

RATING: ✓ Cheers