A Great Movie with a Terrible Ending.
Here is a film which is very difficult to make a sure and solid opinion about. Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window (1944) contains some of the best scenes in the film noir genre, yet contains what I thought to be a really, really stupid and ill-advised ending. There are always bad films with bad endings, and good films with good parts and not-so-good parts - but this is the kind of movie which is a masterpiece for the first 97 minutes, and is the kind of movie where you (no, that was me) pace around the house wondering what the hell that was all about for the last two.
The story is fascinating, especially as directed coldly and simply by Lang. An associate professor (Edward G. Robinson), currently teaching a class on psychological motivations for homicide, finds himself alone for a few months as his wife and kids take a trip. On his first night without the family, he hangs out with his equally acedemic friends, a doctor and a district attorney, as his friends humourously chide him for not being able to live it up due to his marital situation. In response, the prof says that life is over at fourty, and that while the body is willing the spirit is weak. Significantly, after his friends leave for a night on the town, the book he passes the time with is The Song of Solomon.
Late in the evening, the professor passes by a painted portriat of a woman that he and his friends had admired earlier. He looks at the painting again, and - the very woman in the portrait suddenly appears beside him! She basically tempts him to accompany her with the promise of seeing some more portraits, and, even as he slyly notes that he could get in trouble for this, he goes along with her, first by a drink at the bar, and then back to her place (don't worry, they actually do look at portraits when they go up there!!!).
What happens next is quick and brutal. The hours go by, and suddenly the two's pleasant evening is interrupted by a man, who barges into the apartment, and slaps the woman around before pinning Robinson on the sofa, with apparent intent to kill. Robinson tries to fight back, and is then passed a pair of scissors by the woman, and repeatedly stabs the attacker until he dies.
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