Secret Beyond the Door... (1947)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

From my favorite movies..

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Another take on the BLUEBEARD/REBECCA type storyline from German auteur Fritz Lang, although I have to say that this is one of his worst movies. The story involves an idealistic young bride who marries a handsome man and moves into his ancestral home only to discover that he's hiding some very dark secrets. Who is the mysterious scarred woman in his home, and what secret is lurking behind door number seven? There seem to have been hundreds of similarly-themed movies made during the 1940s and this is definitely a lesser effort compared to what's come before (Hitchcock's own version of REBECCA was a masterclass in suspense). SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR is slow and stodgy, with little incident to recommend it. Even worse, despite some impressive sets and locations, there's little of the Gothic atmosphere you'd hope from such a production.Joan Bennett is a rather cold heroine and not really someone you can support very much. Michael Redgrave (THE LADY VANISHES) is better, but seems a bit miscast in his role - he's too much of a nice guy to really convince as a sinister suitor. Sure, things do pick up for an appropriately exciting climax, but by that stage it's too little, too late.

From director Fritz Lang (Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler, Metropolis), I was quite surprised to see that this old film in the genre it was and featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die was only rated two out of five stars by critics, I was still going to watch it regardless. Basically in New York, Rick Barrett (Paul Cavanagh) has died, and his sister and heiress Celia (The Reckless Moment's Joan Bennett) who loved him very much has a brief affair with her brother's friend Bob Dwight (James Seay), he is also administrator to the funds, and they later get married. However she goes on a vacation to Mexico, and there she meets Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave), the eccentric and mysterious owner of a minor magazine, she has a crush on him, and later she divorces her original husband, marries him and moves to Lavender Falls, moving into his mansion Blaze Creek. Celia finds out the manor is administrated by Rick's sister Caroline (Anne Revere), also living there is his secretary Miss Robey (Barbara O'Neil) and his rebel and weird son David (Mark Dennis), born from Rick's previous marriage to a woman called Eleanor. Over a short space of time MArk shows strange behaviour, one night he gives a party to common friends and shows all the rooms in the mansion to the guests, all the rooms relate to men that killed the wives, only one room is never opened and always locked, number 7. Celia is highly inquisitive but equally scared to find out the secret beyond the door, and overcome with curiosity she opens the door and find out the mystery, Mark appears to potentially be planning his wife's murder, but it is not him that goes mad, but Miss Robey setting fire to house, and Mark makes it up to Celia saving her life and they reconcile. Also starring Natalie Schafer as Edith Potter. I agree the reason the film isn't perhaps all that thought out is because many of the flashback sequences are confusing, and it is almost too strange to take seriously, but the performance Bennett is certainly the most interesting, Redgrave I agree doesn't have quite enough romantic appeal but he certainly gets being weird pretty spot on, I think the most watchable sequences were certainly the murderous bits full of surrealism, so it is not a completely disappointing thriller melodrama. Okay!

In New York, after the death of her beloved brother Rick Barrett (Paul Cavanagh), the heiress Celia (Joan Bennett) has a brief love affair with Rick's friend and administrator of the funds Bob Dwight (James Seay) and they decide to marry each other. However, Celia travels on vacation to Mexico, where she meets the mysterious owner of a minor magazine Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave) and she has a crush on him. Mark is an eccentric man that collects rooms in his mansion in Blaze Creek and they immediately get married to each other.Celia travels to Levender Falls and she moves to the mansion. She discovers that Mark's sister Caroline Lamphere (Anne Revere) administrates the manor; his secretary Miss Robey (Barbara O'Neil) also lives there; further, Mark has been previously married with a woman called Eleonor and their rebel and weird son, David (Mark Dennis), also lives in the house. Mark has a strange behavior but a gives a party to their common friends and he show his rooms, all of them related to men that killed their wives. But he does not open the room number 7 that he always keeps locked. Celia is intrigued and a little scared with the contents of the rooms and she decides to find what Mark keeps locked in the mysterious room."Secret Beyond the Door..." is a silly and unbelievable psychological thriller by the great director Fritz Lang, unfortunately with a ridiculous and disappointing conclusion. The story of this Bluebeard is intriguing until the moment that he shows his rooms to his wife and guests. The commercial conclusion with happy end is also terrible. The good thing is the wonderful cinematography in black and white and shadows and the camera work. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "O Segredo da Porta Fechada" ("The Secret of the Closed Door")

"Secret Beyond the Door..." (1949) is a film noir from the master of the genre, Fritz Lang. It stars Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave in a Freudian tale of strange, twisted neurosis that was made in the wake of Alfred Hitchcock's ostensibly similar take on psychoanalysis, "Spellbound" (1945).The screenplay, by Silvia Richards from Rufus King's short story, is almost another version of the "Bluebeard" fairy tale as well as borrowing odds and ends from Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940): the wild and impulsive Celia (Bennett) marries the architect Mark Lamphere (Redgrave), and while on their honeymoon, she realises her new husband has many secrets, such as having had a previous wife, and more intriguingly, a strange hobby of building and replicating rooms where murders have been committed. Yet one room remains locked; driven by curiosity and a growing fear for her own life, she seeks to find the "Secret Beyond the Door…" It is hardly original, stealing mainly from Hitchcock's aforementioned films (even the paintings behind the credits are reminiscent of Salvador Dalí) as well as "Suspicion" (1941) and a whole host of "wife in danger" movies, so popular in the thirties and forties. However, Fritz Lang's immaculate direction lifts this, if not quite into that elite stable of movies that comprise his best American work, then it is still top stuff, stunningly shot by the legendary Stanley Cortez (he was the cinematographer for both Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" [1942] and Charles Laughton's "The Night of the Hunter" [1955]), giving it a real noir ambiance and excellently acted, the performers all being attuned to Lang's bleak vision of life, the obligatory happy ending notwithstanding, demanded by the studio, RKO.While the psychology is pat and the story is unoriginal, it's treatment is superlative. For fans of noir and of great films, this is a must-see.