Rent Secret Beyond the Door (1947)

Recommended.... a great show! - Secret Beyond the Door review by SM

What an interesting movie.......weird and wonderful roles played by actors at the top of their game!

Mood Piece. - Secret Beyond the Door review by Steve

Deep and dark, dreamlike Freudian noir from Fritz Lang which incorporates elements of Hitchcock's Rebecca and Suspicion but is more surreal. It is a thriller that operates on the subconscious level of its disturbed hero, full of visual symbolism.

Michael Redgrave is an architect who collects historical murder rooms, believing that the ambience of the surroundings induced the deaths that occurred within. When he impulsively marries Joan Bennett, she comes to suspect that she may have impetuously fallen in love with a psychotic murderer.

It's far fetched, but fascinating. Lang was disappointed with legendary cinematographer Stanley Cortez  because he worked too slowly. But it's the photography that makes this film so rich, the corridors that Bennett and Redgrave wander in search of the origins of a mental trauma which may be hidden behind one of the many doors.

Redgrave does well in a difficult, melodramatic role.  Bennett  gives a sympathetic and sincere performance. There's a superb gothic score by Miklós Rózsa. The fragmentary narrative gives way to the artistic impact of its gallery of beautiful, haunting noir imagery.