‘THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW’. 1944, B&W, United Artists. Directed by Fritz Lang, Starring: Edward. G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea.
THERE are works of art that simply tell stories – whether in fiction, poetry, theatre or film – and then there are outstanding and perennially valuable works of art which are not simply about the stories they convey, but about the REACTION of the reader or viewer to such works. In other words, their topic is about the effect of their style on your mind, your assumptions, attitude and opinions about art, and how it is expected to be made.

‘The Woman In The Window’ is such a film classic, made by one of the greatest European film directors, German-born Fritz Lang, who fled Nazi Germany for Hollywood, and quickly gained a reputation and respect for the artistic brilliance and social consciousness he brought to American Cinema. Lang left us only powerful and unforgettable films, such as ‘Fury’, ‘You Only Live Once’, ‘Scarlet Street’, ‘Clash by Night’, and ‘The Big Heat’.

What is also interesting is to consider Fritz Lang’s films like ‘The Woman In The Window’ being shown to Guyanese audiences as it was for at least three decades, from the 1940s to the 1960s, even the 70s. This thought is important because it makes us aware of the high artistic and moral quality of such an unusual film being absorbed by Guyanese collectively in cinemas across the nation during those decades when this film was just one of thousands stored and rented from local film depots. The full impact of what I am saying should gain more weight if we see this film now.

Of course ‘The Woman In The Window’ was advertised from time to time decades ago in local newspapers when it was about to be shown, but by the 1960s, there were probably no cinema posters for the film, so patrons who never saw it would simply have to take a chance on seeing it after reading its hand-written title painted on a poster board. Perhaps the lead stars, Edward G Robinson, a short, highly literate and always intellectually tricky actor, and Joan Bennett, that cute beautiful actress of wonderful tenderness and suave seductiveness, would have thrilled those Guyanese who knew of such great film stars, and influenced them to see the show.

So, imagine one of those cool breezy Georgetown afternoons in the 1940s or 50s, or even the 60s, when life in British Guiana was experienced as normal (apart from the typical local anti-colonial sentiments sweeping the world then); when citizens thought of their nation as home because the greatest films, books, and music affected them daily, and there were almost no public traumas to fear, no exaggerated public ideas about life “getting harder everyday” etc, such as what one hears so much today, perhaps because today’s public has very few intellectual outlets via stimulating and precautionary films like ‘The Woman in The Window’.

The film begins with Edward G Robinson, acting as a middle-aged psychology professor, leaving his quiet suburban conventional family home with his wife and kids, and going off to give a lecture on homicide cases at a big city college. While in the city, he relaxes at a private social club frequented by other professional gentleman friends, like the District Attorney, played cleverly by Raymond Massey.

Then, one evening while relaxing with a book in the club’s library, Robinson dozes off, and when he awakes, decides to take a stroll along the sidewalk outside the club. A figurative painting of a beautiful woman in a store window catches his interest, and while admiring it, a real-life beautiful woman, Joan Bennett, strolls up beside him, and Robinson suddenly realises that she is the exact woman who posed for the portrait he is admiring. They begin an exciting conversation on the painting, since Robinson is an art lover, and Bennett, a beautiful friendly model, says she has other paintings and drawings by the same artist and invites him to see them at her apartment.

Of course, Robinson accepts, since, being a middle-aged academic, it is not often he receives an invitation to socialise with a beautiful artist’s model like Bennett. However, while being entertained by Bennett, a rich friend, a businessman arrives, and a heated argument over Bennett develops between the two men, since Bennett had not revealed that she is a kept woman, the mistress of an egotistic financier. In the physical struggle that develops between Robinson and the man, Robinson defends himself with a sharp scissors Bennett provides, and the man dies from a stab wound to his back while pinning Robinson to the floor.

Suddenly, Robinson realises that his knowledge of criminal psychology can now be put to use to disguise his own guilt and escape conviction. He takes control of the traumatic situation Bennett has got him into, and feelings of romantic love begin to develop between them as she admires the way he keeps his cool and quickly bundles the body into a car and drives way out of the city in the dead of night to deposit it in a desolate woods. They decide to communicate only by phone, almost whispering to each other on the line. When an adventurous Boy Scout exploring the woods discovers the body, the film climbs to brilliant moments of psychological suspense because the District Attorney turns to his fellow club member and friend, the professor of criminology, to help him solve this baffling crime.

So now, the very culprit is advising the authorities on how to solve the murder he has committed! You can imagine the state of Edward G’s tricky mind under such stress, and there are hilarious moments when his actions betray his guilt. But of course, it is out of the question that he could be the culprit, and such scenes end with the District Attorney and his colleagues, along with Edward G, all having a good laugh at these startling coincidences.

Enter Dan Duryea as the dead man’s bodyguard, dressed in typical self-conscious stereotypical gangster fashion with pin-striped suit, black shirt, white tie, etc, checking up on Bennett, whom he already knows of course, and suspects as having something to do with his boss’s demise. One chilling moment occurs when Bennett, acting seductive and kind to Duryea, mixes two drinks for them, but slips a drug into his, hoping to drowse him while she makes her escape. But Duryea is no novice, and says: “You drink mine.” When she refuses, he knows what she was up to, and slaps the glass from her hand, sending it crashing to the floor while delivering a fierce threat. Duryea, however, is also a petty thief, and upon seeing a piece of men’s jewellery, he secretly steals it and, already wanted for various crimes by the police, decides to open fire on them when they approach him in Bennett’s neighbourhood. He is shot and the piece of jewellery found and traced back to his dead boss, so he is tagged with his boss’s murder.

When Bennett realises this from the gossip of a crowd on her street, she phones Robinson to tell him they are now in the clear. But, by now, the professor has fallen into a deep despair over his guilt, and the fact that he has lost his respectability and that his career is over. He takes an overdose of sleeping pills to end his despair, just as his phone keeps ringing off the hook with Bennett’s good news.

It is here that the film comes alive, as the phone keeps ringing in Robinson’s head, and he suddenly awakes to find himself in the club library where he had fallen asleep while reading.

So, the entire story of the film is really a bad dream, and as with dreams, the professor realises that the jovial bellboy is really Dan Duryea, who, in his dream, was cast as the criminal bodyguard of his murder victim. Relieved that none of what he thought he had experienced is true, he decides to take a relaxing stroll. And now, in reality, he sees the portrait of Bennett in the window case, and now, also in reality, she appears, asking if he likes her portrait, etc, but the professor, without hesitation, answers: “No!” and runs away from her in the film’s closing scene.

The point of this brilliant film, which has had many later imitators, all never equal in artistry and style to Lang’s original 1944 version, is that life is better when stories with little or no exaggerated drama occur; or when nothing much happens in real life except, of course, harmless pleasure.

‘The Woman In The Window’ erases our childish dependence on exaggerated dramatic stories, and is the sort of film which perhaps encouraged in Guyanese citizens of past decades, both the habit of appreciating meaningful intelligent and artistically avant-garde films such as this, and the enjoyment of a daily national life where most of the time nothing socially traumatic or too dramatic occurred.