Fritz Lang was the first director I discovered when I was a child. There was a series on TV with a dozen or so of his films. What a wonderful experience to realize for the first time that there is someone responsible for a good film (and presumably for a bad one). Of course there is the script and the actors but if you watch the films you sense a kind of directing style, even though you may not know what it consists in. I have been a Fritz Lang fan ever since and fondest in my memory was The Woman in the Window with beautiful Joan Bennett. I remember being totally captured. I just lived with Edward G. Robinson through this nightmare. I was delighted to meet Joan and I panicked when I found I had just murdered this C.M. guy. And how I despised Dan Durea. (And later after coming back to real life seeing him as a door man I thought, no, this guy is in disguise. He is too evil to be a door man.) Now I just watched the film again after more than 20 years and what a disappointment it was. Somehow the film seemed slow and predictable and one dimensional and I found myself zapping to a different program. But thinking about it now, there is just nothing wrong with the movie but only with myself. What a sad thing that I (and people in general) seem to be unable nowadays to just sit through a brilliant piece of film art. It just means that I have been spoiled by too many bad films, action and pseudo psychology. Normally I think there is no use in trying to enjoy a film intellectually and it is bad if you have to find reasons why a film ought to be enjoyed. But it this case I know that I loved the film and that it is great. So there is something wrong with me. The remedy will be forcing myself to only watching film noirs for a whole month.
Review of The Woman in the Window
