Secret Beyond the Door... (1948)

Director:

Fritz Lang

Writers:

Rufus King (story)
Silvia Richards (screenplay)

Release Date:

1 January 1948 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Some Men Destroy What They Love Most!

Plot:

In this Freudian version of the Bluebeard tale, a young, trust-funded New Yorker goes to Mexico on vacation...

Plot Keywords:

Room | Murder | Honeymoon | Motherless Child | Second Wife

Cast

Joan Bennett	...	Celia Lamphere
Michael Redgrave	...	Mark Lamphere
Anne Revere	...	Caroline Lamphere
Barbara O'Neil	...	Miss Robey
Natalie Schafer	...	Edith Potter
Paul Cavanagh	...	Rick Barrett
Anabel Shaw	...	Intellectual Sub-Deb
Rosa Rey	...	Paquita
James Seay	...	Bob Dwight
Mark Dennis	...	David

Also Known As:

Secret Beyond the Door (USA) (alternative spelling)

Runtime:

99 min | West Germany:73 min (25 fps)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #12621)

Company:

Diana Production Company

Trivia:

In the tour of the three rooms, Mark Lamphere recounts the tales of three murders, all of which are fictional. However in the first room, he mentions the St Bartholomew's Day massacre and the Guise family in France. The massacre is a real historical event, where French Roman Catholics attacked French Huguenots (Protestants) on 24th of August 1572 resulting in many deaths. The Guise family was a leading family in the Roman Catholic faction and may have been involved in the instigation of the unrest and other actions which led to the massacre.

Movie Connections:

References Suspicion (1941)

Staggering and sublime.

This has been variously called campy, kitsch, rubbish; I think that, along with 'Rancho Notorious', it is Lang's greatest American film (and therefore A great American film). In a decade of male-dominated film noir, Celia Lamphere (loaded name), like the second Mrs. de Winter and Dr. Constance Peterson, must play detective to save her relationship and her life.

Lang uses the trappings of psychoanalysis throughout, promising enlightenment and healing - a large narrative gap, as Mark chases Celia, puts paid to that: this is a pessimistic anti-Freudian film.

It is also one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen - its atmosphere of dream, its cunning use of architecture and space, its complex sexuality, its trance-like narration, its ellipses, angles and shadows, remind me variously of L'Herbier, Dreyer, Resnais, Antonioni, Molly's soliloquy in Strick's 'Ulysses', Perec's 'the Man who Sleeps'. It is a rare Hollywood art-movie, and there's nothing like it.