SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR: Blu-ray re-issue (Walter Wanger/Diana Productions/Universal, 1947) Kino Lorber

By the time Secret Beyond the Door (1947) hit theaters, it offered little in the way of an artistic reprieve for the careers of either its director, Fritz Lang, or star, Joan Bennett – the wife of the film’s producer, Walter Wanger. Bennett was top-billed against Brit, Michael Redgrave, although in hindsight, it was Redgrave who still had some longevity to etch out on the silver screen. Bennett, conversely, was already involved in a torrid liaison with her agent, Jennings Lang, into whom Wanger would ultimately plug a bullet in a delicate area where he could no longer consummate their affair. All this was still a few years away. But in hindsight, it marked Bennett as a wanton, and, effectively closed out her reign as a forties’ noir fav. Bennett, whose stage career began while she was still a teenager, swiftly ascended into film roles thereafter, mostly playing good girls with an attitude, as Amy Marsh in 1933’s George Cukor-directed version of Little Women. It was on the set of this movie that Bennett met Wanger for the first time; he convincing her to dye her tresses from platinum to brunette (in Hollywood then, usually the other way around) – a decision, ultimately to launch an entirely new screen persona. Bennett wed Wanger in 1940 only to divorce him in September 1965. Between these bookends, the couple were hardly happy. Yet, even as the marriage waffled, then waned, Wanger sought to do everything to ensure his wife’s career remained on track.

Secret Beyond the Door ought to have resurrected Bennett’s sagging appeal. She had, in fact appeared for Fritz Lang thrice before in Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945). But by the end of the decade, Bennett was no longer the fresh new face in town. Nor, by 1947, could she convince as the naïve Celia, who marries a dashing young architect, Mark Lamphere (Redgrave) on the fly, only to suspect him of harboring a diabolical past in the ultra-modern basement of their fashionable home. And hence, the insurmountable hurdle of the piece – the predictable ‘revelation’: all Celia’s needless consternation is for not. Mark is not a killer. Merely, a red herring. As scripted by Silvia Richards (on a story by Rufus King), Secret Beyond the Door makes virtually no sense – not practical, nor even in the clever-clever realm of suspended disbelief the movies are supposedly good at selling as an alternate reality. So, the plot stumbles on its weak-kneed premise, that Mark has murdered his first wife, or was somehow involved in the crime. This leaves Bennett to leer in fear while Redgrave’s frozen-pussed pug skulks about, adding needlessly to her suspicions. The denouement is not a shocker, but merely an affirmation all is right in the couple’s ‘happily ever after’…well, sort of, if only they can rid themselves of the sword of Damocles dangling over their heads.

Plot wise: we are introduced to Celia – predictably, from Manhattan’s upper crust, preparing to wed architect, Mark Lamphere, whom she first met while on holiday with her dotty friend, Edith Potter (Natalie Schaffer) in Mexico. It ought to have been a happy honeymoon. Except, that when Celia plays a game, locking her husband out of their hotel room, he suddenly turns heartless and retreats to his New England estate, claiming he is being called back on business. With nothing to do, Celia follows her husband, discovering he is from affluence, has a large, imposing manor house, and is, in fact, a widower with a young son, David (Mark Dennis) desperately in need of a mother’s love. David is presently under the care and tutelage of Mark’s bitter sister, Caroline (Anne Revere) and trusted secretary, Miss Robey (Barbara O’Neil), whose face bears a terrible scar when she saved the boy from a hellish inferno. Celia and David bond. But the alliance between Celia and Mark is far sketchier and more unstable. Caroline suggests Mark is responsible for his first wife, Eleanor’s death. Caroline also informs Celia that, as a child, Mark often had to be locked in his room, suffering from uncontrollable tantrums. Celia’s dread mounts after Mark shows off a suite of six ‘special rooms’ he has built in a gated corridor of their mansion – each, morbidly to house a replica of a famous murder. But the seventh room remains locked. As Mark refuses to share what is beyond the seventh door, Celia makes a wax impression of the key, intent to unearth the secret beyond its door. Inadvertently, she also finds Miss Robey without her scar-concealing scarf, revealing she has had reconstructive surgery and suffers not from the lingering aftereffects of her heroic rescue. Exposed in her lie, Miss Robey confides in Celia, she had hoped to marry Mark instead. That dream ended, the best Miss Robey can hope for now is to keep her job by making Mark feel guilty about her disfigurement. An empathetic Celia promises not to divulge Miss Robey’s secret.

Now, Celia uses the key made from her wax impression to investigate the seventh room, finding an exact replica of their bedroom. Believing this to be proof Mark murdered Eleanor, Celia is horrified when she acknowledges the candles on the dresser are as uneven in the replica as they are presently in the bedroom she shares with her husband. The room is therefore not an homage to Mark’s murder of Eleanor, but a prelude to his planned murder of Celia. Terrified, Celia runs away. Mark has a row with Miss Robey, whom he too has discovered has defrauded him with her fake scar to elicit his sympathy. Robey is discharged. Mark also has words with Caroline. He suffers a hallucination in which we are meant to deduce he actually planned to kill Celia in Mexico, but fled before he could act on this irrational impulse.

Believing in her husband’s innocence, Celia plies a psychological theory to prove her faith in Mark. She stages a past regression into Mark’s childhood. Under this spell, Mark recalls how, as a boy he banged on his mother’s locked room, only to suffer what he believes was her rejection of him. When Celia explains it was Caroline who locked him in his room, Mark’s desire to avenge this maternal betrayal is shattered. Alas, too late, the couple discovers they have been locked in the bedroom by Miss Robey – also, responsible for Eleanor’s demise – and now, intent on burning the newlyweds alive. Instead, Mark manages to free his bride and carry her to safety. Miss Robey perishes in the flames. Sometime later, Mark tells Celia she has liberated his subconscious. Celia confides she will remain at his side to ease him through their future happiness together.   

Secret Beyond the Door belongs to Hollywood’s idiotic fascination with psycho-analytic mumbo-jumbo first kick-started in Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945). Yet, this is where any and all comparisons between Hitch’s intelligently conceived psychological masterpiece and Lang’s psychosomatic claptrap should end. Almost from its first frame to last, Secret Beyond the Door is stricken with a stifling ennui and even more grand desperation to embellish Mark’s psychological profile with misdirection untrue to the profiling of those suffering from mental disturbances. The suspenseful elements in Richards’ screenplay are pure hokum. Does anyone believe any sane person would devote an entire wing to a Madame Tussauds-esque recreation of great crimes from the century? Secret Beyond the Door might have been on better footing had its two stars actually believed in their performances. But Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave have no on-screen chemistry – not even, of the antagonistic/foreboding kind. He skulks and sulks. She cringes and shrinks in terror. But suddenly, moments before the finale, there is ‘an understanding’ between Mark and Celia. If so, it is a far more perplexing mystery how the ill-fated have managed to bridge their abject mistrust into a promise for tomorrow’s happiness. Lang’s direction is pedestrian and faulty. Ditto for Silvia Richards’ screenplay. So, in the end, we are left with a silly, sordid and rather stupid story of misguided marital misgivings run amuck.   

What little mood is attained is exclusively owed cinematographer, Stanley Cortez’s spookily lit finesse. There are a number of sequences to celebrate Cortez’s prowess in light and shadow. So, the picture, while bizarrely out of whack and uninspiring in virtually every other regard, always gives the audience something compelling to view. The real problem here is Bennett’s Celia - too savvy to be believed as the terrorized wife. She ought to have known better, and frequently, gives the inference she does, though somehow resists these more honest impulses to engage in some utterly contrived emotional naiveté pitted against her more well-formulated and exercised intellectual stature. The finale to Secret Beyond the Door harks back to another Hitchcock thriller, Rebecca (1940), of superior stock. As in Hitch’s classic, we have the crazy lady, the fire and the lover’s reconciled embrace. Unlike Rebecca, we forego the intricacies of the mentally deranged love interest, transformed here in her thwarted desire into sexual sadism satisfied by flames.  And thus, Secret Beyond the Door endures as a slickly manufactured dud. Do yourselves a really big favor here, folks. Watch Rebecca and Spellbound again!

Secret Beyond the Door gets a second outing on Blu-ray. The first was from Olive Films in 2018. Kino Lorber’s reissue promises much, hailing from a supposed 4K scan done by Paramount off an original camera negative. But does it actually deliver? Well, for starters, there are subtler refinements to the 1080p image than previously available in hi-def. So, everything gets a little tighter/brighter, fine details ripen a tad, and, the gray scale is marked by pleasingly resolved tonality. Age-related artifacts have been tempered, though not entirely eradicated. There are still a handful of shots that look rougher than they ought. Is this worth a re-purchase? I would argue, there is not even a good reason to own Secret Beyond the Door – period. It’s just NOT a good movie. The 2.0 DTS appears to be identical to Olive’s previous release and is unremarkable in every way. Kino has shelled out for a new-to-Blu audio commentary from author/historian, Alan K. Rode. It’s okay, but hardly comprehensive, and, in some ways, as uninspiring as the movie itself. Bottom line: at its most impressive, Secret Beyond the Door is a middling effort at best, and, in some ways, falls well below par for the likes of Fritz Lang’s storytelling stature. Pass, and be glad that you did.

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

1

VIDEO/AUDIO

4

EXTRAS

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