Dan Duryea

For decades no studio saw fit to lend the Bryan Haskin’s endeavor a proper cleanup for either theatrical or home video presentation. True enough, the film was and still is in the public domain, but other films, such Orson Welles’ The Stranger, have benefited from top quality standard and high-definition disc releases despite no person or company directly owning distribution rights. It was only in January of 2014 that the UCLA film & Television Archive and the Film Noir Foundation presented a clean 35 print of the picture to the public,

The Woman in the Window can be added to the catalogue of splendid American films Fritz Lang directed during his state side career. It incrementally raises the stakes in logical fashion, tightening tension’s noose on the protagonists and the viewer until…well, it would be unwise to reveal the outcome. While not as emotionally devastating as his next film Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window is still a must see for Lang fans.

Director Roy William Neill, for all his abilities to splash his picture with ambitious flourishes, can rarely make heads or tails of what his 1946 effort Black Angel is trying to accomplish story-wise. By the time the film closes, the biggest challenge for the viewer is trying to understand why he or she should care at all about everything that transpired. The plotting lacks a foundational logic for the themes to ring true or to mean something for that matter.