The Woman in the window

In this film noir, one man’s life is turned upside down by an encounter with a stranger. Professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson), an academic reduced to summer batchelorhood accepts a beautiful woman’s (Joan Bennett) offer of a drink - only to find himself an inadvertent murderer and a pawn in a dreadful roundelay of deception, blackmail, sudden death and suicide. Director Fritz Lang keeps the tension taut, New York sidewalks glistening and the audience guessing. ‘The Woman in the Window’ shows that good and evil are present in all, and that circumstances frequently dictate moral choices. So successful was this movie that Robinson, Lang, leading lady Joan Bennet and baddie Dan Duryea immediately reteamed for ‘Sacrlett Street’. Screenplay by Nunnaly Johnson from the novel ‘Once off guard’ by J. H. Wallis.