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
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Robert Barber	...	Altar Boy (uncredited)
Virginia Brissac	...	Sarah (uncredited)
Ralph Brooks	...	Minor Role (uncredited)
Tom Chatterton	...	Judge (uncredited)
David Cota	...	Small Mexican Knife Fighter (uncredited)
Frank Dae	...	Country Squire (uncredited)
Harry Denny	...	College President (uncredited)
Watson Downs	...	Conductor (uncredited)
Danny Duncan	...	Ferret-Faced Man (uncredited)
Robert Espinoza	...	Altar Boy (uncredited)
Virginia Farmer	...	Levender Falls Wife (uncredited)
Paul Fierro	...	Fighter (uncredited)
Jesse Graves	...	Porter (uncredited)
Marie Harmon	...	Sub-Deb (uncredited)
Donald Kerr	...	Ticket Man (uncredited)
Nolan Leary	...	Station Agent (uncredited)
Ralph Littlefield	...	Gothic Man (uncredited)
Donna Martell	...	Young Mexican Girl (uncredited)
Kay Morley	...	Sub-Deb (uncredited)
Pedro Regas	...	Waiter (uncredited)
Peggy Remington	...	Dean of Women (uncredited)
Julian Rivero	...	Proprietor (uncredited)
Tony Rodriquez	...	Altar Boy (uncredited)
Paul Scardon	...	Owl Eyes (uncredited)
Houseley Stevenson	...	Andy (uncredited)
Wayne C. Treadway	...	Beefy Man (uncredited)
Lucio Villegas	...	Priest (uncredited)
Eddy Waller	...	Lem (uncredited)
Crane Whitley	...	Levender Falls Husband (uncredited)

Directed by
Fritz Lang

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Rufus King		story
Silvia Richards		screenplay

Produced by
Fritz Lang	....	producer
Walter Wanger	....	executive producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Miklós Rózsa		(as Miklos Rozsa)

Cinematography by
Stanley Cortez

Film Editing by
Arthur Hilton

Production Design by
Max Parker

Set Decoration by
John P. Austin		(as John Austin)
Russell A. Gausman

Costume Design by
Travis Banton		(gowns)

Makeup Department
Carmen Dirigo	....	hair stylist
Bud Westmore	....	makeup artist

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
William Holland	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Glenn E. Anderson	....	sound
Leslie I. Carey	....	sound

Music Department
Eugene Zador	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Walter Wanger	....	presenter

Production Companies

• Diana Production Company

Distributors

• Universal Pictures (1948) (USA) (theatrical)
• Budd Rogers Releasing Corporation (1955) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• National Telefilm Associates (NTA) (195?) (USA) (TV)
• Bio-Kuva (1949) (Finland) (theatrical)
• Kinokuniya (2006) (Japan) (DVD)
• Republic Pictures Home Video (1990) (USA) (VHS)
• Yleisradio (YLE) (1974) (Finland) (TV)

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:

Michael Redgrave's first American film.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Merci pour le chocolat (2000)

Sub-Rebecca melodrama that has its moments visually but no consistency or substance in the material

Celia Barrett is a New Yorker with a trust fund and one of the city's most eligible single women. On a trip to Mexico she meets and falls for the charming Mark Lamphere, and later the couple marry. Returning to his home and pushing him to let her finance his passion for collecting "rooms", Celia starts to suspect that all might not be right with this perfect man she has landed and indeed the secrets in his house and in his past soon start to mount.

I watched this on the back of positive reviews from a couple of people on this site; perhaps I should have read further though because I didn't find the wonderfully intelligent noir that they claimed to have seen. Perhaps these commentators have not seen the film Rebecca which sort of covers similar themes but does it much, much better than this film does, but for me I found it hard to care about this. Visually I liked it and credit to Lang because his direction and work with his cinematographer does produce some really well set up scenes that do have great atmosphere. However this is not repeated in the material which is not as intelligent as it would like to think itself. Indeed it is terribly overwrought and melodramatic and offers little to counter it.

As a result the cast have to thanklessly play it up the best they can. I thought than Bennett did as good a job as she could have hoped to have done. She isn't brilliant though but she plays detective well. More important but not much cop is Redgrave; OK the blame lies more on the material than in his performance but given how little was conveyed by words at times, his performance was important but not up to the task.

Overall then, a fairly overdone melodrama that doesn't really convince in how it uses psychoanalysis to inform and direct its narrative. It may look great but the substance just isn't there from the start right down to the insultingly simplistic final scene.