The House Across the Lake (1954)

Perfect cast and a good story

Best movie ever!

Blistering performances.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE is one of the film noirs that Hammer Films regularly made before they hit paydirt with THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN in 1957. It's a low budget movie, filmed at Bray Studios, watchable enough in itself without ever equalling the heights of greatness that Hammer reached once they remodelled themselves as a horror studio.The film stars regular American import Alex Nicol, who was no stranger to appearing in British B-fare (A STRANGER IN TOWN and THE GILDED CAGE are two others I've seen in him and he seems to give the same performance in each one). He plays an everyday character, a washed-up and boozy writer who rents a house on the lake and soon becomes involved in the lives of the rich couple living opposite.Hillary Brooke is another import, playing the adulterous wife who secretly despises her rich husband. Brooke is an odd choice to the part; slightly too old and difficult to see what men would find so alluring about her, although she excels when playing the nastier side of her character, something Hitchcock noticed when he cast her in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. The real stand-out is Sid James in a rare non-comedic role as the sympathetic husband, just looking for friendship in a lonely world. James is fantastic, he really is, and he made the film worth watching for me.Otherwise, this is predictable stuff, involving love triangles, adultery, and of course the inevitable murder. Other than James, the characters aren't very nice which spoils things a bit, although it's hard to criticise THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE too much as there's nothing intrinsically bad about it; it's just that so many pictures like this was made it threatens to get lost amid the rest.

At a time when noir production was converting to TV, Lippert hooked up with England's Hammer Films. (And that's before Hammer hooked up with Dracula and Frankenstein.) Judging from this effort, budget minded Lippert got a lot more bang for their buck overseas. Compared with traditional noir, the settings here are much more naturalistic than expressionistic. There's little of the usual menace of light and shadow. Instead, most scenes are shot on location with natural lighting, except for the climactic fog-bound sequence. This undercuts atmosphere and mood, staples of standard noir. As a result, it's the fateful story that's highlighted. And since the story is narrated in flashback, it seems the outcome is pre- determined in some metaphysical sense.Sure, you've seen the story before, as others point out. A rich man's slutty wife (Brooke) conspires to kill him with key help from a luckless fall guy (Nicol). Sounds like Double Indemnity (1944) even down to the double-cross. Still, the screenplay is good enough to hold interest. And was there ever a more stately ice queen than Hillary Brooke. It's hard to see her ever unwinding enough for intimacy. And therein lies a problem. Too bad the film couldn't show some stage of real melt from her, like a dash of undress or even mussed-up mascara. Nicol too is pretty low-key for a guy obsessed. But then this is 1954, not exactly the anything goes of more recent vintage. In my book, it's luckless Sidney James who steals the film, with his nicely modulated peek at a doomed man. I like the way the script only later fills in why he's so seemingly indifferent to his wife's very public affairs. That way we're left really curious for a well-timed period.Anyhow, the movie's much better than the lowly two-stars out of four that TCM rates it. Then again, maybe I'm just a sucker for any noir with a well-turned ankle.

***SPOILERS*** Drowning his troubles in a bottle of scotch at the British Lake Windermere Yacht Club American writer Mark Kendrick, Alex Nicol, spills his guts out to the person, who for the time being shall remain nameless, he meets there about what a fool he was to get involved with icy blond Carol Forrest, Hillary Brooke. It was Carol who manipulated him into doing what he did for her own selfish and murderous interests. That for him to be a pasty in her plans to off her husband Beverely Forrest, Sidney James, and then be left holding the bag as she checked out on Mark with pianist Vincent Gordon,Paul Carpenter.This nightmare started of for Mark when he was invited to a party thrown by Carol to help ferry with his motor boat her guests back to shore after it was discovered that the boat that took them there was out of gas. It was later that Mark took the gas-tank in being set up to whack Beverely while on a fishing trip at lake Windermear planned by Carol. What really set Carol off was the discovery that her old man, who knew she only married him for his money, was going to cut her out of his will and thus out of the lifestyle she's been so used to living. Also her step-daughter Andrea, Susan Stephen, saw through her and was also doing everything possible to get her dad Beverely to divorce Carol before she did him him for good.****SPOILERS**** Not realizing that he was being set up Mark together with Carol and Beverly went out on the lake fishing in pea soup thick fog when by avoiding another boat ended up knocking Beverly off the control or watch booth where he busted up his skull and landed unconscious on the deck below. With his back turned and keeping his eye on the steering wheel Carol pushed the unconscious Beverly overboard where he ends up drowning. With Carol who claimed to be in love with him now dumping Mark for the piano player, whom he detested, he just about had all he could take from her and decided to do the right thing. And with that Mark decides to spill the beans of what he did in him being an accomplice, or better yet pasty, in Beverely's murder of her husband. And the person whom he spilled the beans to, as well as buying him a couple of drinks, is the police detective on the case who's been hounding him all throughout the entire movie Inspt.Maclennan, Alan Wheatley.

An American writer (Alex Nicol), down on his luck, meets his rich neighbors who also live by the lake. He befriends the ailing husband (Sid James) and falls in love with the duplicitous wife (Hillary Brooke).Ken Hughes directed "The House Across the Lake" (with the irrelevant American title of "Heat Wave") from his own screenplay based on his own novel. I guess he is the only one to blame for the story's blatant rip-off of James M. Cain (particularly "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity"). But at least he rips off the best, which means this crime thriller is more engaging than most of the films included in VCI's "Hammer Noir" DVD collection.