The death house on the river
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The death house on the river |
| Original title | House by the River |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1950 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Fritz Lang |
| script | Mel Dinelli |
| production |
Howard Welsch Robert Peters |
| music | George Antheil |
| camera | Edward Cronjager |
| cut | Arthur Hilton |
| occupation | |
| |
Das Todeshaus am Fluß (Original title: House by the River ) is an American film noir by Fritz Lang from 1950. The screenplay is based on the novel The House by the River by the English author AP Herbert from 1921.
action
The unsuccessful writer Stephen Byrne lives with his wife Marjorie in a Victorian-style mansion on the banks of a river in the southern states . Humiliated by another failure, he gets drunk and goes after the young maid, Emily. When she begins to scream out loud as he tries to get closer, he strangles her in an affect . In order to remove Emily's corpse as inconspicuously as possible, he asks his limping brother John for help. The bachelor John, an accountant, has often helped his brother out in the past, for example in financing his lavish lifestyle - John first wants to report the murder to the police, but then lets Stephen persuade him to help out out of brotherhood. Finally, the two sink the victim in the river in a sack tied to an anchor.
The brothers react differently to the murder: John plagues conscience in the face of his complicity in the crime and he increasingly withdraws from society, while Stephen skillfully uses Emily's disappearance, which is mysterious to the public, for his own professional success. When his name appeared in the paper, sales of his books skyrocketed. While Stephen is able to maintain the facade to the outside world, Marjorie becomes estranged from him in view of his increasingly manic behavior and their marriage begins to run down.
One day Stephen sees the sack with the corpse swimming along in the river and he goes on a desperate search, but he can no longer find it. When Emily's body is finally recovered, the investigation focuses on John because the sack was marked with his name and his former housekeeper, Flora, makes statements about John's strange behavior in the aftermath of Emily's death. A public hearing does not initially lead to charges against John, but from then on he is ostracized by his fellow men and the police are watching him. It is speculated in the village that John, as a cripple, had no chance of a real woman anyway, which is why he got involved with the maid and murdered her - in fact, Marjorie and John have feelings for each other, which Stephen does not go undiscovered.
Now Stephen plans to kill his brother under the pretense of suicide and thus finally put the blame for Emily's death on him. When they meet on the bank of the river, he knocks John down and throws him into the river. During Stephen's absence, Marjorie reads his new manuscript, which he did not let anyone read and which, according to him, should be close to real life. Marjorie reads between the lines and now knows who murdered Emily, whereupon Stephen tries to strangle her. John, who has freed himself from the river, can save Marjorie in time. Stephen hallucinates seeing Emily in a curtain and falls off the stairs as he escapes.
background
At the end of the 1940s, Fritz Lang found himself in a difficult situation. His latest film, Secret Behind the Door, starring Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave, had failed both critics and the box office. He also fell out with several producers. These circumstances forced him to work for House by the River with the smaller studio Republic Pictures , which was best known for its B-Movies . Compared to the films of previous years, the budget was correspondingly significantly reduced and Lang had to forego the participation of big Hollywood stars. Lang originally wanted to make the figure of the murdered maid into an African-American woman, but the censorship office of the Hays Code forbade him, since after this erotic desire between blacks and whites was not allowed to be shown.
House by the River premiered in Los Angeles on March 23, 1950, and the film was released nationwide two days later. In Germany, Das Todeshaus am Fluß only celebrated its premiere with a television broadcast on August 29, 1986.
Reviews
In the New York Times of May 2, 1950, Bosley Crowther praised the performance of the actors and the direction of Lang, who would make the most of their material. But he criticized Mel Dinnelli's script as not very exciting, because you already know the killer and you know that he will be caught in the end. The resolution at the end of the film that the murderous writer exposes himself with his book is as unimaginative as one can imagine.
Well-known German film critic and film essayist Frieda Grafe included the film in a list of her 30 favorite films published in 1995. Cornelius Schnauber also writes enthusiastically: “It is one of the most unknown and yet most successful films that Lang has ever made. Not only does all the furnishings of the house (plush sofas, heavy wallpaper and curtains) show the late Victorian period from which the crime then arises (a crime for fear of discovering even the smallest erotic sin: a scream when kissing), but also the river itself his indefinable objects, which he swims at, point to hidden things that could happen. "It is one of the most romantic films from Lang's American work and a" perfect thriller thanks to its atmosphere and documentary authenticity. Psychological and causal processes are endowed with light and dark eeriness, but still remain documented from step to step. "
All Movie Guide's Tom Vick praised Lang for carefully creating a Victorian feel in the film. Cinematographer Cronjager filled the scenes in the house with "suitably dark shadows and the river scenes lit by the moon make it appear as if nature itself was offended because of the crime." George Antheil's score is also perfect for this "cool and unconventional exercise in tension ".
The film service judged mostly positive: “Slightly dusty, dark and macabre crime melodrama, set in the atmosphere of moral and ethical ambiguities typical of Fritz Lang. Remarkable because of the camera settings and the interesting symbol references in the decor and setting: everything reflects the soul of the main character, so that its macabre ending also results from a cinematic absolutely compelling logic. "
Web links
- House by the River in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The death house on the river at UCM.ONE (German)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b David Cairns: Felicitous Rooms: Fritz Lang's House by the River sensesofcinema.com, October 2005, accessed on April 27, 2013
- ↑ About Republic Pictures ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. republicpictures75th.com, accessed April 27, 2013
- ↑ Farran Smith Nehme: Lustful Undertow: Fritz Lang's The House by the River fandor.com, November 29, 2010, accessed April 27, 2013
- ↑ Cornelius Schnauber : Fritz Lang in Hollywood . Vienna 1986, p. 87 .
- ^ House by the River (1950) - IMDb. Retrieved March 23, 2019 .
- ↑ Bosley Crowther: THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'House by the River,' With Louis Hayward and Lee Bowman, Is New Feature at the Mayfair . In: The New York Times . May 2, 1950, ISSN 0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed March 23, 2019]).
- ^ How film history writes differently: Frieda Grafe - 30 films arsenal-berlin.de, accessed on April 27, 2013
- ↑ Cornelius Schnauber : Fritz Lang in Hollywood . Vienna 1986, p. 80 .
- ^ The House by the River (1950) - Fritz Lang | Review. Retrieved March 23, 2019 (American English).
- ↑ The death house on the river. Lexicon of International Films, accessed April 27, 2013 .
