acnovo I must say that I watched this movie because it's from Fritz Lang. In one hand I like the way he worked the main character, the evil human side that he always show in his movies. But in the other hand in my opinion the movie is very predictable,I guessed how it was going to end, the way the story was going to run and that's not very good. To appreciate this movie you must understand the evil/good way Fritz Lang shows humanity from a very fiction way like Metropolis or a very could-happen-to-you way like this movie. In my opinion the rhythm is a bit slow, I liked more the way he directed Metropolis or Dr Mabuse, the acting wasn't great, but if you like Fritz Lang, watch it.

chaos-rampant There's a constituting moment in a film that contains the seeds of its unfolding shape, usually there is. Here it is a writer in his house by the river, dreamily looking at the beautiful maid upstairs while his wife is out of the house, lusting. He has before him a stack of papers, the story which he continuously writes all through the film and is the film we see mirrored. Going into the house, desire grips him for a moment and shatters everything. An accident, which speaks of the mysterious, puzzling urges that overcome us and cloud the mind, a moment of 'looking' that is desire. A narrator who finds himself inhabiting that desire, hallucinating—essential attributes of noir these. Seeing, story, hallucinating author; this was Lang's mode ever since the silent Mabuse back in Germany. Godard knew why of all Hollywood filmmakers he picked him for his Contempt. For a while it's a perfectly decent film. The dark house with flowered wallpapers, where he can't find the 'light'. The river where they hide the body, and which throws up all the human 'filth' as the housekeeper muses. His paranoid fight with flowing waters, a capricious nature that cannot be manipulated like a story. So the blueprint is fine but Lang was getting old, or cinema was getting young. Noir at this point was pushing for a more dynamic narrative space on this side of the eye, Welles was foiled by stupid studio men in his Shanghai but look at Ray's and Dassin's work, Huston in his Asphalt Jungle. From Gun Crazy of the same year it is a straight road to Breathless and Godard. And In its visual contours and narrative space this is simply obsolete for the time. Lang was generally talented with hard layered allusion, not particularly graceful with anything else. He envisioned hard, chiseled noir dreams— Woman in the Window being his most obvious about a narrator dreaming, but they're all in the same simple mould. But here he's saddled with average actors, and completely loses the plot after the trial. Also, I'm in the habit of noticing how filmmakers film water, for some reason it's inherently cinematic and the perfect metaphor about soul. It's telling that water looms central in the film and Lang does so little with it. Germanic square imagination cannot understand water - unless you're Herzog.Noir Meter: 3/4

evening1 I enjoyed this thriller about a psychopathic writer who accidentally kills his sexy maid and then tries to pin it on his crippled brother.Louis Hayward overacts a bit as Stephen, the failed scribe who rejects his attractive and classy wife, Marjorie (Jane Wyatt), in favor of his tease of a housekeeper.I enjoyed the performance of Lee Bowman as Stephen's brother John, who, out of family loyalty, allows himself to be dangerously manipulated. He too harbors a forbidden love -- for his brother's wife -- but has the integrity not to act on it. Descending into alcoholism, he'd rather flee than make love with his sister-in-law.In a film that is much less ambitious than a classic such as "M," Fritz Lang creates scenes of satisfying creepiness on a river that is central to the plot. In addition, a courtroom scene is quite entertaining.My only quibble with this movie is its facile ending. It all ties up just a little too neatly. I expected more from this famed director.

mark.waltz You don't have much time to even put your hand into your popcorn when all of a sudden, murder pops up. It's all sudden, out of nowhere, an obvious accident, yet cruelly hidden. Louis Hayward strangles the maid he's anxious to bed while simply trying to keep her quiet so a nosy neighbor passing by won't hear her screams. Then, when he realizes what he's done, he's using his crippled brother (Lee Bowman) to help him get rid of the corpse simply by flinging the poor maiden into the river which is conveniently located outside Hayward's back door. But no bad deed goes unpunished, the girl's absence does not go unnoticed, and as you had already seen in those low-budget Tod Slaughter British horror movies of the late 30's and early 40's, the corpse comes home. Will the suspicious wife (Jane Wyatt) be the next to pay or will a little ghostly visit by the deceased make the piper be paid? Like the house in "Rebecca", the moors in "Wuthering Heights" and the land in "Gone With the Wind", the river acts like a character, one without dialog, but definitely living and breathing, watching the evil occurring with baited breath and waiting for the right time to strike. The funny thing is that all along, you really begin to think that the villain actually might get away with it, and it is brilliant fun to watch everything fall into place. Fritz Lang, another "master of suspense", keeps every moment gripping, and after misfiring with his "Secret Beyond the Door", scores with his "House By the River".The supporting cast has some great moments, particularly Anne Shoemaker as the pesky next door neighbor who shows up at the most inauspicious times to annoy Hayward, and Jody Gilbert (in probably her biggest part) as the maid. I began to notice this portly character actress only recently in so many films I've seen many times before, and unlike other character actors of the time, she seems like people you may have known in your neighborhood as a child or encountered at work. (Other character actors usually seem so much larger than life or have a look that is far too unique to be common.) In fact, the day I watched this movie, Ms. Gilbert popped up in another film I had just seen ("Are You With It?"), not surprising in the fact that she appeared in over 100 films and TV shows. Dorothy Patrick, as the poor maid dispatched by Hayward, reminded me of Angela Lansbury in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" with her pathetic creature one of those frail maidens you can tell from the very beginning who was destined to be exploited, used, and tossed aside. This is the type of film to watch in total darkness for the full effect.