We haven't been making much headway on this project for a variety of reasons.
a) we have a baby with amazing instinctive understanding of film. Meaning that he has a real knack for waiting for the quietest, most wrenching, or most important-to-understanding-the-movie moment to lose his shit.
b) we don't want to watch movies when we haven't written the last ones up
c) and we still haven't written the last ones up.
So I'm going to start doing quick takes on movies we just don't have as much to say about. Not necessarily because we didn't like them, but because they just don't seem like there's enough fodder for a really full discussion.
I really wanted to like Fritz Lang's WOMAN IN THE WINDOW. It's Fritz Lang! Edward G. Robinson! Joan Bennett! I adore SCARLET STREET, right? WOMAN IN THE WINDOW left me with a serious case of the mehs, though. Not that there wasn't some good stuff in there, mind you - Dan Durya has a great time playing a blackmailer, Joan Bennett does her thing, and Edward G. Robinson has to have really enjoyed playing the world's shittiest fucking criminal. (Seriously. My god. We're talking "yell at the TV" incompetent.) It's got some great sustained suspense and a bit of that "what would you do" action, but I don't feel the whole thing ever really came together for me.
And the ending is Some Bullshit.
Seriously, I cannot with that. It's rude to the audience. Ha ha, caught you caring, but it was all a dream! It's insulting. I'm not saying it never works, but you'd better think long and hard about that before you serve it up to me.
On the whole it feels like a rough draft for SCARLET STREET, honestly. Similar elements but it doesn't really hum.
- Sara
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