Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 24-August-08
Spoiler Rating: Medium

The Woman in the Window (1944)

When I was a tyke a babysitter told me a story. There was a woman who noticed that her blanket had a hole in it. Since it was her only blanket, she was very concerned and immediately determined to remedy the situation. Grabbing her scissors, she carefully cut out the hole and threw the offending scrap in the waste basket. Her relief was short lived, however, because she then noticed another, even bigger hole in the blanket. So she cut that one out too and was dismayed to notice another! And so on and so on.

I am not sure why this story has stuck with me over the years, but I find that it resembles a good number of movies where the protagonists dig holes for themselves by piling one stupid decision on top of another. Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window is one such film. It centers around a mild-mannered professor (Edward G. Robinson) who is left alone when his wife and kids go on holiday and falls into a strange adventure. Having been captivated by a portrait in a store window near his men's club, he miraculously meets the subject (Joan Bennett) on his first evening alone. Though young and attractive, she admits to being lonely and cajoles him into going home with her. No one knows how far this indiscretion might have gone, because after an hour or two of getting acquainted they are interrupted by the woman's jealous lover. A scuffle ensues and the newcomer ends up with a pair of scissors in his back. Instead of going to the police and truthfully describing the killing as self-defense, the professor and woman decide to hide the body and pretend it never happened. This act of foolishness leads to others, what with the dead man having been a tycoon (unbeknownst to the woman), the professor's friend being the District Attorney, and the tycoon's sleazy bodyguard (Dan Duryea) deciding that blackmail is definitely in order.

These stories are not parables, for they do not warn against stupidity as much as say that stupidity, like love, lust, loneliness, and greed, are human traits that can lead a person to ruin. But with its pointed opening and unexpected finale, The Woman in the Window also delivers a moral message. It should be noted that the professor lectures on the psychology of crime and that just before his adventure he and his cronies discuss whether middle-aged men, unfettered by wives, do or should have the will to visit burlesque shows. Perhaps prompted by the censors of the day (as I have read), the movie admonishes that when a man reaches a certain age and position he ought to be immune from dangerous impulses, and moreover be glad that he is. When people attain some armor against foolishness, temptation remains safely behind glass.

Copyright © 2008 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.