Interesting plot, excellent actors, so why is it obscure? Because of the editing. This film goes on forever. Cut thirty minutes and it might have been better known.
An impressive, neglected classic of psychological suspense
Ah, the golden age of Hollywood, when films actually relied on strong stories to build suspense and keep audiences riveted to the screen. I had never really heard of The Red House (1947) until recently, but this is one heck of a good film. It sometimes gets associated with film noir, but I would describe it as more of a psychological thriller. It features a strong cast, including the likes of Edward G. Robinson, Judith Anderson, and Rory Calhoun (as well as a wonderful young actress named Allene Roberts), a wonderful musical score by Miklos Rozsa, and a plot that methodically works itself out to great effect.
Young Meg (Roberts) lives on a quiet country farm with Pete Morgan (Robinson) and his sister Ellen (Anderson), having been taken in by the Morgans as a two-year-old following the death of her parents. Everything is calm and peaceful until Meg talks Pete into hiring some extra help in the form of young Nath Storm (Lon McCallister). When Nath says he is taking a shortcut through the woods, Pete goes off half-cocked and starts ranting about the woods being haunted, screams in the night, and the evils of a red house. Nath soon comes running back to the farm, but he is determined to figure out the secret of those woods. Meg also wants to know why she has always been forbidden to enter the woods, and the two of them sneak off several times to go exploring. Pete becomes more unsettled as the movie progresses, as dark memories begin to bubble to the surface of his mind, and the viewer is eventually forced to question his motives. There is plenty of drama and suspense (and a touch of young love) before the dark secrets of The Red House are revealed, all of which contribute to the film's remarkably dark and somewhat eerie atmosphere and a surprisingly effective conclusion. To my mind, Robinson tends to overplay his part at times, but Allene Roberts comes into her own and plays opposite his character extremely well.
Some viewers found some of the scenes in the dark woods to be scary, but modern audiences will almost surely find nothing the least bit scary about this film. Suspense, though, still abides here in droves, helped along quite effectively by an orchestral score featuring the theremin (which was used predominantly in early science fiction films). Younger viewers might sometimes grow a little impatient with the slow and steady nature of the plot, but it is the strength of that plot that makes The Red House a somewhat overlooked classic.
A Film Not To Be Overlooked!!!
Deemed as one of Martin Scorsese's most influential films, "The Red House" is a cinematic treasure. "The Red House" is classic film-noir, using extreme shadows and camera angles to advance the plot line. The film is set in a small peaceful, rural, community in the 1940's. Pete Morgan and his sister, Ellen Morgan, have adopted Meg, now a young teenage woman, whose parents had died shortly after her birth. As the story develops doubt arises over Meg's past and the secrets of the mysterious Ox Head Woods located on the Morgan farm. As the intrigue into the past continues, Pete slips between sanity and insanity, between the present and the past. While Ellen attempts to ground Pete, Meg begins to unravel secrets of her own past. The plot is edgy and suspenseful. The music seamlessly fits into the film with brilliant composition. Edward G. Robinson, who plays Pete Morgan, gives an over the top performance that works for this film. He is haunted by his past and reminded daily with the haunting figure before him - Jeanie. "The Red House" is one of my favorite films and is a film which should not be overlooked. Plot line: A Acting: A- Cinematography: A+ Music: A Overall: A
In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the color and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G. Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. But this time around, all three characters have moved several notches down the ethical scale. Robinson, who in the earlier film played a college professor who kills by accident, here becomes a downtrodden... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Edward G. Robinson - Joan Bennett Director(s): Fritz Lang DVD Release Date: Released the 19 February 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Leave Her to Heaven is one of the most unblinkingly perverse movies ever offered up as a prestige picture by a major studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Gene Tierney, whose lambent eyes, porcelain features, and sweep of healthy-American-girl hair customarily made her a 20th Century Fox icon of purity, scored an Oscar nomination playing a demonically obsessive daughter of privilege with her own monstrous notion of love. By the time she crosses eyebeams with popular novelist Cornel Wilde on a New Mexico-bound train, her jealous manipulations have driven her parents apart and her father to his grave. Well, no, not grave: Wilde soon gets to watch her gallop a glorious palomino across a red-rock horizon as she metronomically sows Dad's ashes to the winds. Mere screen moments later,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Cornel Wilde Director(s): John M. Stahl DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The long-awaited emergence of Nightmare Alley into the light of DVD should achieve two things: make a legendary film noir available to a new generation, and restore the horrific charge to the lately watered-down term geek, a concept that once had the power to give people very bad dreams indeed.
To his lasting credit, Tyrone Power--20th Century Fox's extraordinarily handsome but not terribly interesting star of the '30s and '40s--begged for the chance to play Stan Carlisle, the predatory charmer who snakes his way through this bracingly unwholesome story. A spieler for--and lover of--carnival mind reader Zeena (Joan Blondell), he displays uncanny skill at "reading" the susceptible rubes, including a tough sheriff who turns to jelly after Stan psychs him out. Once Stan's... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Tyrone Power - Joan Blondell - Coleen Gray Director(s): Edmund Goulding DVD Release Date: Released the 07 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"What's the use of having a war if you don't learn from it?" The speaker is Alec Stiles (Richard Widmark), a menthol-sniffing asthmatic in a snap-brim hat who's nailed down the organized-crime franchise for a burg named Center City, and who runs it "scientifically," using methods he picked up in uniform during WWII. He can even tap into the databanks of the FBI. Which, by coincidence, is gearing up to bring his mini-crime wave to an end. Street with No Name invites us to sit back and watch both sides deploy their methodologies at each other.
The semidocumentary crimefighting/spybusting thrillers of the late '40s are fascinating for their blend of institutionalized rectitude (the FBI is totally trustworthy and awesomely competent), authentic locations ("filmed where it... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Mark Stevens - Richard Widmark Director(s): William Keighley DVD Release Date: Released the 07 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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