THE WINDOW: Blu-ray (RKO, 1949) Warner Archive

Director, Ted Tetzlaff’s The Window (1949) reminds me of a war-time quote from Bing Crosby, who once quipped on his popular radio program that in case of an air raid, duck into RKO Studios because “…they haven’t had a hit in years!” Despite a solid cast, to include Barbara Hale (Mary Woodry), Arthur Kennedy (her hubby, Ed) and the loan out by Walt Disney of precocious Bobby Driscoll (as their son, Tommy), Orson Welles’ Mercury player alumnus, Paul Stewart (Jo Kellerson) and a barely recognizable, Ruth Roman (his wife – and murderess, Jean), some excellent B&W, noir-ish cinematography by Robert De Grasse and William O. Steiner, and, the added attraction of shooting at least some of the picture on location on Manhattan’s lower east side, The Window emerges as a maudlin and drawn out ‘would be’ thriller that mostly relies on Driscoll’s diminutive 12-yr.-old to carry the show. Driscoll’s a competent talent. But he struggles here, mostly under the duress of Mel Dinelli’s lumbering screenplay, to delay, then delay…and delays, the suspense in favor of some truly outrageously bad contrivances, to derail young Tommy’s protestations about having witnessed a murder in the Kellerson’s apartment while trying to sleep on the fire escape during sweltering summer heat. In an age that firmly believed children ought to be seen, though never heard, and certainly, never to be taken seriously, The Window played to the strengths and deficits of an adult world too wrapped up in its own careworn malaise, getting on with the business of daily survival, to actually care about a boy’s declaration he actually witnessed a homicide close to home.

And thus, we have the Woodry’s rather callous and cruel outright rejection of Tommy’s pleas for help. Ed counsels his son, inferring the boy is mental ill, and further pitches the prospect that to have insanity in the family would be more of a blight on his character and reputation as a father, than a call to action to get young Tommy the treatment he needs to be well again. Meanwhile, Mary completely disregards Tommy, even dragging him up to the Kellerson’s apartment so he can apologize to them for telling a ‘lie’ that would impugn their character as good upstairs neighbors. Given the paper-thin walls of New York tenements, precisely how the Kellersons were able to beat and stab a drunken seaman to death in the wee hours of the morning – when all is still – and not be heard by half the building is, frankly, a complication never addressed in Dinelli’s screenplay, very loosely based on Cornell Woolrich’s short story, The Boy Cried Murder (later, reprinted as Fire Escape). The Window was a critical and financial smash for RKO, earning Bobby Driscoll a miniature Oscar as the outstanding juvenile actor at the 1950 Academy Awards ceremony. Fredrick Ullman, head of the studio’s documentary and shorts department produced it, fought like hell - and won - against the studio’s executive brain trust, to shoot on location, with the original plan to star either Bells of St Mary’s (1945) actor, Dickie Tyler or Christopher Blake, with shooting to take place at RKO’s Pathe Studio in the Big Apple. Dinelli seemed a good choice to write it, having done wonders with The Spiral Staircase (1946) for production chief, Dore Schary.

But by the time the picture was ready for release in 1948, RKO was in the hands of millionaire, Howard Hughes who refused to release it, adding Bobby Driscoll “wasn't much of an actor.” For whatever reason, the usually intractable Hughes was ‘persuaded’ to dump the picture on the market where, surprisingly, it became a sleeper hit. The Window opens on New York’s lower east side. We are introduced to the Woodrys. Tommy’s yen for creating fantasy scenarios occasionally land him in hot water with his folks. The latest of these causes their landlord (Edgar Small) to assume the family is moving out. He arrives to show the apartment, but is promptly turned away by Mary. Ed is extremely disappointed in his son. He even suggests to the boy that he might be mentally ill. That evening, the apartment is too hot to sleep in. Tommy gets permission from his mother to move to the fire escape, but then decides to climb one floor up, as there appears to be a breeze blowing off the roof. Alas, Tommy witnesses his neighbors, the Kellersons, steal from the wallet of a non-descript seaman (Richard Benedict) they apparently lured to their apartment to get drunk and rob during a fixed game of poker. Jean Kellerman stabs the seaman in the back with a pair of scissors. Terrified, Tommy sneaks back into his own bedroom while Joe Kellerman carries, then drags the corpse across several rooftops where he will not be discovered for days.

In the meantime, Tommy attempts to tell his mother about the killing. She admonishes him, suggesting he has had a nightmare. The next day, Tommy makes a valiant pitch to his father, who also rejects his confession as just another tall tale spun by his mentally unstable offspring. Rather cruelly, the Woodrys punish Tommy for telling the truth, ordering him to stay in his room. Instead, the boy climbs down the fire escape outside his window and hurries to the nearby precinct to confess to the police. None of the officers, however, believe him either – not even Det. Ross (Anthony Ross), who begrudgingly makes a cursory inspection of the Kellerson’s apartment, gaining entry by claiming to be from the housing commission. Although Ross spies a brown stain on the carpet, Jean’s claim it was caused by a leaky roof – rather than the victim’s blood – is wholly accepted at face value; Ross, returning Tommy to his apartment and incurring Mary’s wrath. This time, she locks Tommy in his room. Later, Ed nails the window shut in Tommy’s bedroom to prevent further ‘incidents’. When Mary receives a telegram from her uncle, suggesting her sister is unwell, Tommy suggests it was sent by the Kellersons to get him alone. However, Ed allows Tommy to telephone the uncle, who admits he sent the telegram. With Mary away, and Ed gone to work, Tommy is alone in the apartment at night. Earlier, Mary dragged Tommy to the Kellersons. And although he refused to apologize to Jean, she now informs Joe of the boy’s knowledge of their crime.

That night, Joe forces his way into the Woodry’s apartment and confronts Tommy, who rather stupidly reveals everything he knows about the murder. While Joe makes light of Tommy’s ‘wild imagination’, even offering, along with Jean, to take him to the police, the couple instead abscond with the boy down a dark alley, presumably to murder him. Tommy briefly escapes the couple, but is dragged into a waiting taxi. Not even the driver believes Tommy’s screams, nor does the cop on the beat who accepts Joe’s claim he and Jean are his mother and father. Causing Tommy to fall into unconsciousness, the Kellersons take him back to their apartment, even as Ed is on his way home to look in on his son. Finding the apartment abandoned, Ed goes in search of Mary. Meanwhile, Tommy escapes the Kellersons and hides in the nearby abandoned and dangerously crumbling tenement. Joe pursues the boy through this labyrinth of decaying brick and mortar. When Tommy climbs a rotten staircase pursued by Joe, the weight proves too much. The stairs collapse, causing Joe to plummet to his death while Tommy dangles from the edge of a beam suspended several floors. His cries alert the neighbors, who call the police. Ed and Mary arrive by taxi and witness the perilous rescue of their boy. Tommy takes police to the location of the dead seaman, proving his story was the truth all along. Ed, Mary and Tommy reconcile, with Ed revealing he is proud of his son. Gee, it only took a near-death experience to earn his trust and love!

Viewed today, The Window is a pretty silly affair. Even in 1949, it reeks of the pall of child neglect. While one may argue ‘different time/different place’, the reality is that even in 1949, a child’s emphatic pleas for help ought to have been embraced, especially by his parents, until it could be proven he was either telling the truth or lying through his teeth. The picture is so heavily weighted on young Bobby Driscoll’s protestations, that to completely disregard Tommy as either naïve or merely devious to his own detriment, speaks more to the willful ignorance of the adult world that surrounds him than the insular childhood he inhabits. I’ll concur with Howard Hughes here. Driscoll’s not up to the challenge of making us care about Tommy Woodry. He begs, harps, pleas and emotes with a trained theatricality, more a byproduct of the ‘grooming’ received at the Walt Disney Studios, to play desperately vibrant innocence as its own reward with a ‘golly gee’ strain that, alas, puts a more direct burden on the audience’s ability to buy into the legitimacy of his dumb show. Barbara Hale, later to discover lasting fame as his gal Friday on TV’s Perry Mason, is thoroughly wasted here as the drudge, while Arthur Kennedy’s portrait of a lower middle-class patriarch leaves a good deal to be desired. Ed Woodry’s not a father, but a guy who views the formative years of raising a child as a necessary evil, until the day he can finally look back on his son with pride through the respectability the adult offspring will hopefully afford him from others. In the last analysis, The Window is a B-programmer from RKO, made in an era when the studio was already well into its last gasps for basic survival and merely looking for filler to meet a quota.

Warner Archive (WAC) has confused The Window with a golden age classic.  Warner Bros., MGM, and RKO have all made better movies than this, still MIA in hi-def. And while I certainly can find high praise for the efforts put forth to remaster this deep catalog release, I firmly believe the distinction here ought to be made between certifiable classics and movies that are just older than rocks in water, and not altogether deserving of the time and effort to slap to disc. WAC has afforded The Window another grade ‘A’ treatment. The B&W elements are in very solid shape here. Tonality is exquisite and contrast is superb. Film grain looks indigenous to its source and there are no age-related artifacts to impugn this presentation. The 2.0 mono DTS is solid. Apart from a trailer and cartoon short, there are NO extras. Bottom line: The Window is a movie I had never seen before and hope never to revisit again. Its cast is squandered and the story has dated rather badly. Unconvincing, hokey-jokey-pokey plunk like this, although a bread-n’-butter staple of the industry then, doesn’t represent the cream of the crop. While The Window made money for RKO in its day, today it stands – or falls – on the shortsightedness of its screenplay, unsustainable in Bobby Driscoll’s shrill and oft anemic central performance. Pass, and be glad that you did.

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

1

VIDEO/AUDIO

5

EXTRAS

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