HOUSE BY THE RIVER: Blu-ray (Republic, 1950) Kino Lorber

Fritz Lang's House by the River (1950) is C-grade filler, given B-grade trappings, only to waste its A-list director on a hapless, dull and marginally perverse claptrap.  Is this a Gothic melodrama, a torchy turn-of-the-century psychological noir thriller, or a D+ police procedural? Regrettably, a little of all of the above, though never enough of one over the other, to make any of it stick, except as cheap programming nonsense. Lang was 'O' for two with this clunky/clumsy cacophony of murder and mayhem; having belly-flopped two years earlier with another bizarre whodunit? - Secret Beyond the Door. It’s hard to believe that the visionary who broke the mold in both German Expressionism and futuristic sci-fi fantasy with 1927’s Metropolis could so completely ravage his reputation with pedestrian fare such as this! Republic Pictures, home to a lot of tripe, also had some rare qualifiers in its canon, including Alan Dwan’s Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), John Ford's The Quiet Man (1952) and Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar (1954).

So, who to blame? Lang or the studio? It's rather tragic too, because Lang had once been able to write his own ticket in Hollywood. Alas, those years had obviously passed. With House by the River, we get the genuine sense Lang is truly a director for hire, disengaged, and doing this one only for the money.  Lang was something of his own worst enemy, feisty to a fault and temperamental, frequently to bite the hands that fed him as an artist. In Hollywood, he bounced from one studio to the next, making personal pictures like Fury (1936) that, while brilliant, were not heavy hitters at the box office. Becoming a naturalized citizen in 1939, to stave off rumors he was somehow schilling for the Nazis, Lang worked steadily for nearly 20 years thereafter, finding his niche state's side directing a series of classy noirs, 1945's Scarlet Street and 1953's The Big Heat among them. Unfortunately for Lang, he was easily disillusioned to discover Hollywood cared less for auteurs and artists than those work horse directors who could get something in the can by Tuesday.

Based on a novel by A. P. Herbert, Mel Dinelli's screenplay for House by the River sets the action in an undisclosed time frame, its turn-of-the-century trappings strangely at odds with the more contemporary strain of the acting on tap from all concerned. Top-billed Louis Hayward makes the least of his gently psychotic n'er-do-well; just a guy who accidentally strangles his sexy-as-hell upstairs’ maid, Emily (Dorothy Patrick) while his wife, Marjorie (Jane Wyatt) is away for the afternoon. Lang sets up the premise for this accidental murder, then mercilessly fumbles it as Hayward's aspiring writer, Stephen Byrne becomes overly zealous in his amorous affections for the maid, silencing her with a strangulation he did not mean. Or did he? The slope becomes even more slippery as Stephen preys upon the mental fragility and wide-eyed sincerity of his disabled brother, John (Lee Bowman), begging his indulgence to hear his side of the story, then somehow, an even more insidious coup: to get John to help him cover up the crime.

Predictably, John illustrates pity and a genuine affection for his sibling. The two wrap Em's body in a tarp and set out for the nearby river. Even more predictably, they fail to sufficiently weigh down the corpse. After several days, it floats passed the house, drawing public suspicion to his front door. Mercilessly, Stephen compounds his crime by letting John take the fall. Rather shamelessly, he authors a best seller about the crime to incriminate him too.  As time passes, Marjorie begins to suspect her hubby’s been up to no good. You think? As something thoroughly wicked this way comes, Stephen begins to confide in John, even as his trial looms large on the horizon. Stephen’s guilt and fear of discovery culminate in an act of desperation. At the inquest, he fiendishly delights in watching John squirm. Innocent - well...sort of...John suffers needlessly and contemplates suicide. Meanwhile, Marjorie's love for John ripens as she begins to piece together the clues as to what really occurred on that fateful afternoon. Stephen's deception gets the better of him after he brazenly uses Emily's death to sell copies of his book. Alas, hoping to take thorough advantage of the situation, Stephen accidentally frames himself in his 'fictionalized' crime. Having discovered her husband's grave sin, Marjorie is too late to reveal it to anyone. She confronts her husband, is brutally attacked, but scared off by John and the specter of Emily, whom Stephen perceives is haunting the house. Becoming entangled in the billowing curtains on the second floor, Stephen takes a tumble off the banister to his own death. Gotcha!

House by the River is a pretty pathetic thriller, made even more shamefully second-rate in the knowledge it was conceived by Fritz Lang. There is, as example, no logical reason for John's devotion to Stephen - a man who would clearly throw their own mother under the proverbial bus. John's inbred nobility is nicely contrasted with Stephen's spiraling psychosis. But the real difficulty Lang has here is in clearly delineating evil from good. Stephen's initial badinage with the dowager who lives next door gives no indication he can be triggered into a sexual psychosis by an impromptu attraction to the upstairs' maid. Nor does his murder of Emily play as either deliberately planned or an accident. So, he didn’t kill her in a heated passion. Only a misfired flagrante delicto. Oh, now, that’s better!  Louis Hayward is fairly spooky and lascivious as he ogles Emily descending the stairs in his wife's nightgown - a supple leg exposed in half-shadow to imply erotica. Yet, it is between this gray area that Lang struggles to find the sort of cinematic clarity that can crystalize the plot for the rest of us, uncertain of the modus operandi of his killer, he further blurs the moral code of ethics with Hayward's inability to delineate the triggers in Stephen's unhealthy decline from congenital Jekyll into oversexed Hyde.

Mel Dinelli's tepid trap of a screenplay is further distilled by long bouts of naiveté as Marjorie reasons Emily's accident, and the trial to follow it, could have been easily avoided, if only she had remained at home for the afternoon. And although there is something obviously cruel and calculating about the way Stephen judges Emily's murder as more of an inconvenience for him, than a tragedy for her, Hayward's heart is not in this coy terror he endeavors to inflict. So, neither do we believe him in his stalking, nor the homicidal result that follows it. Thus, when he emerges as the full-blooded and venomous deceiver – arguably, worthy of his crime - the betrayal is slight at best and thoroughly not in keeping with the character as written or play-acted. Lang is further hampered here by some truly artless production design by Boris Leven. The long shots of Stephen's manor and fashionable neighborhood is an obvious combination of full-scale sets and unconvincing matte work. John McCarthy and Charles S. Thompson's art direction is clearly at the mercy of Republic's budgetary restraints. The interiors of the mansion are bare-bones, lit and photographed in Lang's preferred chiaroscuro noir effects. But the whole affair is stale rather than sobering, and without any real denouement to recommend it. In the final analysis, House by the River is so fraught with forgettable moments we sincerely wish we could forget that Fritz Lang directed it.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray is described as a ‘new 2K remastering’ effort. The results are unremarkable at best. While the elements are generally free of age-related artifacts, with only a few scratches to intermittently intrude, there is a lot of streaking and modeling throughout this image, and considerable light-bleeding around the edges of the screen, more noticeable during the darkly lit scenes. The tonality in the gray scale is subdued. Contrast is darker than anticipated, so the mid-register looks muddy, while the dark end of the spectrum just appears cloudy by comparison. Process shots are very unstable. The top half of the establishing shot of the mansion Stephen shares with his wife teeters from side to side while the lower half, full scale set remains rock solid, completely destroying the effect. Process shots can also appear grainier than the rest of the movie, and grain itself seems inconsistently rendered. Sometimes, it’s there. At other instances, it’s not. The 2.0 mono is bland.  We get an audio commentary from historian, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. It’s saying something when the commentary is more invigorating than the movie. There is also an interview with producer/historian, Pierre Rissient; about as dull and uninspiring as the picture itself. Bottom line: House by the River could never be regarded as a classic, despite Heller-Nicholas’ insistence it is (choke!) ‘underrated’. She also discusses the ‘MeToo’ movement and Harvey Weinstein, although why either is related to the movie at hand is beyond me! Pass – and be extremely glad that you did!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

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VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

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