Spoilers for a 81 year old movie! Last week L. took me to see a double feature at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood presented by Noir City. We saw two classic films. The first was The Woman In The Window. This was a really good movie. This college professor named Richard Wanley is at a station with his wife and kids sending them off on vacation. He heads out to meet his friends at this fancy ass man spot where they smoke and eat. Richard talks about the painting in front of the place and is smitten with the woman in it. He talks about it with his friends and when he leaves stops to stare at it some more. Suddenly the lady in the painting is standing there. Her name is Alice and she says that she likes to watch people look at the painting and then notice she is there. She invites him back to his place saying that she has some more sketches that were done of her.
Go home, sir!
Richard is hanging out having drinks with Alice when this dude barges on in and starts smacking Alice around and pounces on Richard strangling him. Alice hands him some scissors and he gives him the ol' prison welcome. This dude dies and Alice says she doesn't know his real name but was a guy she was messing around with. Richard tells Alice that he is gonna get rid of the body. This man washes off the scissors and heads home to grab his car. He leaves his vest as collateral so Alice knows that he is gonna return. He grabs his car and uses a blanket of hers to roll dude up and carry him downstairs. He plans to drop the body off far away and along the way to home and to dump the body he gets pulled over and spotted by a bridge worker.
Richard takes the body and drops it over a barb wired fence and cuts himself and rips his coat. He also leaves his footprints and tread from his tires in the mud. This man is bad at criming! Richard meets up with his friends and one of them is a district attorney. He says that this well known financier was found dead. Its the damned dude Richard killed! His friend mentions that is is easier to catch killers these days. Richard goes along with him to the crime scene after mentioning he cut his hand (lying saying it was on a can) and when they arrive he starts walking right to where he dumped the body! He also has a rash from the poison ivy at the scene.
Alice ends up getting blackmailed by this dude Heidt (who is a former dirty cop) who knows that she was last seen with the financier for whom he was watching. He wants five grand from Alice. Alice gets in touch with Richard is is like “This is not gonna end when you pay him” and that is exactly what happens. Oh, and Richard got some medicine from his doctor friend and Alice was supposed to drug Heidt with it. She fails. Heidt leaves her place after getting the money and the watch that belong to the dead dude (that Alice fucking kept!). Alice lets Richard know that the plan failed and he takes some medicine himself to kill himself while looking at a photo of his wife and kids. Heidt ends up getting shot and killed outside by cops! Alice goes to see his body and runs back into her place to let Richard know the good news but man is already dead. But...
I shit you not! Richard wakes up in the place he was at with his friends drinking and shit. The staff wake him at the time he requested. The coat dude is the one he killed in the dream. The doorman is the blackmailer. He sees the painting outside but a different woman tries to talk to him and he runs away from her. Now, I normally hate when movies or TV shows turn out to be a dream. It used to be a thing on TV like crazy in the 80s and 90s. This was in the 40s and I'm sure it blew folks minds. Hell, it got me good. I was glad it was a dream because that man's life was ruined as far as he knew. I enjoyed the acting in this and the story. I also need to mention how cool the camera work was especially during conversations with how it would sweep to the person talking to an object and then to another person talking. Not sure how watching this knowing the ending with be like for me but I would watch this again.
Edward G. Robinson as Professor Richard Wanley
Joan Bennett as Alice Reed
Raymond Massey as District Attorney Frank Lalor
Edmund Breon as Dr. Michael Barkstane
Dan Duryea as Heidt
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