THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE is one of the film noirs that Hammer Films regularly made before they hit paydirt with THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN in 1957. It's a low budget movie, filmed at Bray Studios, watchable enough in itself without ever equalling the heights of greatness that Hammer reached once they remodelled themselves as a horror studio.
The film stars regular American import Alex Nicol, who was no stranger to appearing in British B-fare (A STRANGER IN TOWN and THE GILDED CAGE are two others I've seen in him and he seems to give the same performance in each one). He plays an everyday character, a washed-up and boozy writer who rents a house on the lake and soon becomes involved in the lives of the rich couple living opposite.
Hillary Brooke is another import, playing the adulterous wife who secretly despises her rich husband. Brooke is an odd choice to the part; slightly too old and difficult to see what men would find so alluring about her, although she excels when playing the nastier side of her character, something Hitchcock noticed when he cast her in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. The real stand-out is Sid James in a rare non-comedic role as the sympathetic husband, just looking for friendship in a lonely world. James is fantastic, he really is, and he made the film worth watching for me.
Otherwise, this is predictable stuff, involving love triangles, adultery, and of course the inevitable murder. Other than James, the characters aren't very nice which spoils things a bit, although it's hard to criticise THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE too much as there's nothing intrinsically bad about it; it's just that so many pictures like this was made it threatens to get lost amid the rest.
The film stars regular American import Alex Nicol, who was no stranger to appearing in British B-fare (A STRANGER IN TOWN and THE GILDED CAGE are two others I've seen in him and he seems to give the same performance in each one). He plays an everyday character, a washed-up and boozy writer who rents a house on the lake and soon becomes involved in the lives of the rich couple living opposite.
Hillary Brooke is another import, playing the adulterous wife who secretly despises her rich husband. Brooke is an odd choice to the part; slightly too old and difficult to see what men would find so alluring about her, although she excels when playing the nastier side of her character, something Hitchcock noticed when he cast her in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. The real stand-out is Sid James in a rare non-comedic role as the sympathetic husband, just looking for friendship in a lonely world. James is fantastic, he really is, and he made the film worth watching for me.
Otherwise, this is predictable stuff, involving love triangles, adultery, and of course the inevitable murder. Other than James, the characters aren't very nice which spoils things a bit, although it's hard to criticise THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE too much as there's nothing intrinsically bad about it; it's just that so many pictures like this was made it threatens to get lost amid the rest.