After a whirlwind romance in Mexico, a beautiful heiress marries a man she barely knows with hardly a second thought. She finds his New York home full of his strange relations, and macabre rooms that are replicas of famous murder sites. One locked room contains the secret to her husband's obsession, and the truth about what happened to his first wife.
Joan Bennett Michael Redgrave Anne Revere Barbara O'Neil Natalie Schafer Paul Cavanagh Anabel Shaw Rosa Rey James Seay Mark Dennis Robert Barber Ray Beltram Virginia Brissac Ralph Brooks Albert Cavens Tom Chatterton David Cota Frank Dae Harry Denny Watson Downs Danny Duncan Robert Espinoza Virginia Farmer Paul Fierro Herschel Graham Jesse Graves Marie Harmon Maria Haro Donald Kerr Show All…
O Segredo da Porta Fechada, Het Geheim achter de Deur, Das Geheimnis hinter der Tür, Dietro la porta chiusa, Le Secret derrière la porte, Secreto tras la puerta, הסוד שמאחורי הדלת, 비밀의 문, Тайна за дверью, 门后的秘密, U progu tajemnicy, Tajemství za dveřmi, Secret rere la porta, Таємниця за дверима, Salaisuus oven takana, Den låsta dörren
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Fritz Lang's Freudian melodrama, which takes a large dose of influence from Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. Secret Beyond the Door begins with a fairly typical premise; as we see a woman meeting and falling in love with a man. From there, the film is equal parts romantic melodrama and offbeat pulp - as the location alluded to in the title becomes the focus of psychoanalysis. The film is a bit slow to start; but once we get going proper, it is an intense thriller. The director is keen to really ramp up every little piece of drama in the whole thing. The aesthetic really brings an extra layer to the proceedings too - the scenary and lighting giving the film a…
This film is kinda weird???
● Probably Fritz Lang’s least conventional English film. The expressionist style harks back to his German work in Metropolis, M, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, etc.
● The plot is a literal mix of Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Spellbound.
● Stream of consciousness narration that flows with the odd rhythm of the film.
● Michael Redgrave’s architect character recreates rooms that housed famous murders in history??
● Something about lilacs???? Idk??
It was probably too ambitious to ultimately work, but I enjoyed watching something so odd and unconventional, even if it does feel like a lesser version of Hitchcock’s (and Lang’s) movies.
Vague spoilers for the ending in the last two paragraphs.
Much of Fritz Lang's Secret Beyond the Door is very dated, the neatness of its conclusion is laughable, and there's a whole lot of Rebecca in its shape, but what an intriguing character stands at its center!
Celia (Joan Bennett) is beyond the age at which women are expected to marry but, far from self-conscious about her single status or ashamed of being an old maid, she instead rejects suitors regularly, showing no interest in rushing into marriage in order to satisfy the expectations of the society through which she moves. In addition, she's frightfully intelligent and sharply perceptive, a clear-eyed problem solver who prefers to meet issues head on…
Fritz Lang should know better than to watch Rebecca while speedballing gin and Benzedrine.
Notwithstanding its straightforward premise, Secret Beyond the Door is brought alive by the extraordinary visuals of director Fritz Lang. The developing story-telling flourishes with camera angles which border on procuring the piece with almost surrealistic qualities which cultivate an inviting environment as well as an uncertain atmosphere.
At the centre of the gothic melodrama is an outstanding performance from Joan Bennett as Celia, a wealthy though impractical socialite. She impulsively ties the knot with a virtual stranger she meets on holiday in Mexico. After they begin to live their lives in his mansion, she gradually begins to speculate that he might be scheming to murder her.
It's mostly down to Lang's proficiency to visually illustrate estrangement and the alien environment…
Perhaps I was in the mood for a little gothic melodrama mixed with stunning film noir cinematography. Perhaps it was the "Bluebeard" myth that got to me. Or maybe it was the mystery, the doubling, or even Joan Bennett's gorgeous wardrobe. But whatever it was, I truly enjoyed watching Fritz Lang's "Secret Beyond the Door" for the first time. It has a lot going on, including Freudian elements that predate Hitchcock's "Psycho" while riffing on his depiction of The Gothic genre in "Rebecca"; it's a love story, a mystery, and a horror story all rolled into one. As a result, the film might come across as jumbled, but that weirdness is part of the appeal, for me at least. It's also well acted, beautifully shot, and captivating. Well worth the watch!
lang embraces psychogeography and the female gothic melodrama with gusto, a marriage bed becomes the site of originary trauma and mankind is shaped by dark powers of aesthetic and enviornment. normally i hate the cheapjack psychoanalysis deployed here which was very in vogue in the late 1940s, but secret beyond the door doesn't reduce everything to it because it is less therapeutic and more akin to a detective story or a point-and-click adventure game where our heroine ferrets out the clues to solve the mystery of her weirdo husband. lang is in full expressionist mode here and shows that he can still conjure nightmarish moods of horror when in america -- this is the filmic equivalent of purple prose, winding and maze-like, but i found it to be utterly hypnotic and perfectly suited to lang's temperament, it is a harsh film with beautiful passages of strange romance.
Secret Beyond the Door é um dos mais fascinantes, encantatórios e complexos filmes de Fritz Lang, uma das suas grandes obras-primas. Ou seja, é uma das grandes obras-primas da história do cinema.
Múltiplas abordagens se podem tentar e se têm tentado para analisar este Secret (porventura o mais bem guardado dos segredos) mas a cada nova visão, mais o filme me aparece críptico. Tentarei encontrar chaves nalgumas dessas análises para verificar que nenhuma serve na fechadura.
a) A abordagem hitchcockiana. O próprio Lang afirmou que o ponto de partida para esta obra fora uma visão de Rebecca de Hitchcock. Tem-se também aproximado o filme de Suspicion, Spellbound e, até, de Marnie.
Com Rebecca há muitos pontos de contacto. Logo que…
Day 5:
Devastated that this is my first Fritz Lang flick, such a let down when I know he's such a brilliant filmmaker 😩 Thought it would be fun to watch a 40s thriller for Halloween but this one just isn't it. Do yourself the favour and watch Hitchcock's adaptation of Rebecca. This is lifeless and painstakingly long for being just over 90 minutes.
Having spent Saturday evening at work as Storm Darragh wreaked havoc across the UK, my little gatehouse was freezing cold with the howling wind and rain, and the secret beyond my door was a stool keeping the elements at bay. As someone who has only just discovered Fritz Lang's films in the last few months, the desire to see as many of the readily available titles saw me turn to YouTube for this 1947 pyschological film noir. Starring Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave, I went into this one blind with only the knowledge that Fritz Lang directed it, and that my new obsession, Joan Bennett, played the lead.
Secret Beyond the Door is something of a mixed bag, with an…
I recall, many years ago, coming across a post on some blog or other wherein the author argued that the most interesting movies to study are the near misses. The idea, if I’m remembering it correctly, being that the outright failures are a waste of time, and perfection is impossible to replicate. But the skillfully crafted productions that are dragged down by a few glaring shortcomings are the ones that have a tendency to worm their way into your mind and demand to be understood.
I don’t recall who wrote that blog. But after watching Fritz Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door tonight, I’m beginning to think they might’ve been on to something.
It’s a film that offers discerning viewers much…
I get that people will perhaps always have a hard time with the film’s basically wrong-headed psychological mumbo jumbo (they are actually wrong; it gets fully subsumed into Lang’s puzzle form + more universal well of emotion), but Lang and Cortez’s mise en scene locates a deeper truth, a kind of image making that is purely beautiful. if you turn your back on that, you do so at risk of missing something intrinsic to cinema, rarely on display so vividly.
