Two Fritz Lang Film Noirs

1944's The Woman in the Window and the following year's Scarlet Street, are two of Fritz Lang's early film noirs, both very dark tales of passion and murder, and both featuring the same main cast.

The first, The Woman in the Window stars Edward G. Robinson as Richard Wanley a timid, middle-aged psychology professor who yearns for the adventurousness of youth. After his wife and children leave for a vacation, Wanley spends a quiet night of drinking at a social club with friends, which happen to be the district attorney and a doctor. Before entering the club with his friends, he finds himself admiring a painting of a beautiful woman in a storefront window. He and his friends talk about the beautiful woman in the painting and joke about being old and stodgy.

Later, while leaving the club, he once again stops to admire the painting when he is then surprised to meet the subject of the painting herself, Alice Reed, played by Joan Bennett. Wanley agrees to get a drink with Alice, thinking that he will have something fun to share with his friends the next evening but he soon finds himself at her home. Not long after that, her lover comes in, furious and violent. Wanley ends up killing him, and he and Alice work out a plan to cover up the murder.

A lot of the movie shows Wanley trying to live with his guilt and trying to cover his tracks, as his own friends, the District Attorney, and the doctor, investigate the case and come ever closer to finding the culprit. At the same time, a blackmailer, played by Dan Duryea, is tormenting Alice with his knowledge of what really went down.

Their efforts to cover up the murder, twists and turns and the whole thing builds toward a beautifully dark, ironic conclusion. Or at least it would have, had the strict guidelines of the Hayes Code accepted the original ending, which they did not, so Lang tacked on a crappy little scene, in my opinion, that negates pretty much everything that went on before. I thought the ending was very disappointing, but if you just turn off the movie a little bit early, you'll get a story that feels true.

Fritz Lang's very next film, Scarlet Street, explores some of the same themes of midlife restlessness, and of the nature of guilt. It essentially has the same cast as the previous movie and this time around, Robinson plays Christopher Cross, a timid, middle aged bank cashier in a loveless marriage whose true passion is painting. At a celebration honoring his long years with the bank, he jealously watches his boss leave the party with a young mistress. Walking home that night, he witnesses what he believes to be a mugging. Running off the mugger, he takes the victim, Kitty, played by Bennett, for a drink. Smitten with her, he tells her about his aspirations as a painter.

Kitty, in actuality, is the girlfriend of the mugger, Johnny, played by Duryea. Knowing little about the arts, Kitty believes Cross is actually a successful, but modest painter, not just a hobbyist. Together, Kitty and Johnny work up a scheme to bleed Christopher dry, with Kitty acting as a muse for his paintings and Johnny selling them. It all leads to, you guessed it, a murder, and then guilt. I won't spoil the outcome, though.

Of the two, I liked the second film better. The Woman in the Window almost felt like a trial run for what ultimately became Scarlet Street. The Scarlet Street characters were more three dimensional, the plot more fully formed, and the sad ending was not compromised. And, even though no blood is shown, the murder scene in Scarlet Street is still really brutal and effective. I was glad to see Lang sneak this one past the Hayes Code.

If you're in the mood for a good Film Noir double feature, you could do worse than these two movies. They play great as companion pieces to each other, and seeing Edward G. Robinson playing against the type he's come to be synonymous with is really fun. And Joan Bennett never disappoints, in my opinion.