The Woman in the Window

Screening on Film

Directed by Fritz Lang .
With Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea.
US, 1944, 35mm, black & white, 99 min.

In this independently produced film noir, a mild flirtation draws a college professor (Robinson) into a web of murder and blackmail. The Woman in the Window incorporates all those elements that attract audiences to the noir genre: claustrophobic urban spaces created in studios, rain-drenched and glistening nocturnal streets, subtle and surprising camerawork that creates a world of chiaroscuro, a seductive temptress (Bennett), and an anxious hero. As Lang’s guilt-ridden Everyman is led through the scenes of his own crime by his D.A. friend (Massey), minute details becomes enlarged as if under a magnifying glass.