IslandGuru Who payed the critics

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

gavin6942 A deranged writer (Louis Hayward) murders a maid (Dorothy Patrick) after she resists his advances. The writer engages his brother (Lee Bowman) to help in hiding the body...Richard Brody wrote, "Every detail of the film, from its opening shots of the nearby river and the wind in the trees, has moral resonance. Stephen promises to change, but from the moment that he listens lasciviously to Emily's bathwater sluicing down a drainpipe his bad end is already foretold —- and the elements of nature, the wind and the water, are the ultimate agents of his doom." How can I argue with such a poetic interpretation of this film? Whether intended by Lang to be so symbolic or not, Brody nails it and gives the film a new lease on life. While this may not be Fritz Lang's best work, or even his best noir, it is a fine piece of cinema with all sorts of moral ambiguity that deserves recognition.I watched the film on Netflix. It was not completely restored and the picture was full-screen. Perhaps a better version exists out there or could be made?

bkoganbing The most interesting aspect of House By The River is the fact that it was produced at Republic Pictures, the home of Roy Rogers and several other B movie cowboys and the values those pictures put forth. Hardly the place for a moody and atmospheric thriller that examines a man's moral degeneracy directed by Fritz Lang who always likes to explore the dark. One thing that does mark this as a Republic film is the usual Herbert J. Yates economy.But for a director like Lang who was used to exploring shadowy worlds, economy on the set isn't a hindrance, though back in Germany this man directed the opulent Metropolis. House By The River delivers the most for its meager budget.Louis Hayward who was a poor man's Tyrone Power and like Power could play straight heroes and hero/heels gets his Nightmare Alley type role as the rich and idle writer who just can't move the writer's block. He takes a real fancy to maid Dorothy Patrick and when she repulses his advances, Hayward kills her. He gets older and club footed brother Lee Bowman to dump the body in the river. But as dead bodies will do, they bloat and have a nasty habit of floating to the top.Lang and Hayward create a really frightening picture of moral degeneracy that would have resonated well with post World War II audiences who had just defeated a nation gripped in the philosophy that it was a race of super people. Jane Wyatt gets her innings in playing Hayward's wife who Bowman also loved and who starts thinking that maybe she married the wrong brother.I have to single out Jody Gilbert from the cast who plays Bowman's housekeeper and who Bowman takes his frustrations out on after he's helped Hayward. She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and misreads all of Bowman's signals and later does him damage at a coroner's inquest. I'm not sure how much money House By The River brought in to Republic Pictures, but it is a minor masterpiece for this studio.

nomoons11 Wow this guy was one bottom feeder of a brother. A semi-semi-talented wanna be writer decides he wants to have a little kiss from the maid and his true nature comes out. He kills her accidentally but he realizes that...he doesn't care.After this (and this is just the beginning) he decides to shove the blame over to his brother. Of course his brother has done nuthin' except help him his whole life. This is a seriously useless individual. After the killing he realizes what he can get away with and decides that his writing needs "reality" to be any good. Meaning he has to actually live the stories for them to sell. So he lies against his brother, tries to kill him and whilst doing this he's writing a new book called...."The River".The performances are pretty good. The lead look scarily similar to a young thin Orson Welles. I had to look twice to make sure it wasn't him. He over does it a bit but the others, like his brother and wife, play their parts with a steady hand. This one has a Gothic typa feel to it. All in all a fairly decent film...just make sure you don't watch it with a sibling that doesn't like you :D

OldAle1 Lang is the first director I ever fell in love with, probably 20 years ago. I've been slowly (very slowly) going through his whole filmography and I don't have too many left. This is #23 and though it's not one of the better ones, it still offers plenty of Lang's typically despairing pleasures. Edward Cronjager's awesome heavily shadowed b&w photography lets us know immediately that we're in noir territory (though the turn-of-the century coastal setting isn't typical) as failing writer Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward) has a little "accident" involving his new maid and must spend the rest of the movie covering up and trying to shift the blame for her disappearance on much stabler and saner brother John (Lee Bowman). The suspense builds steadily, with a fine courtroom scene that's nicely underplayed, and for a while I though this might end up being one of Lang's greats, but the finish is disappointingly heavy-handed and obvious, though the laugh that escaped me almost made it worth it. Jane Wyatt is beautiful as always but doesn't have enough to do; Hayward is the real star here though, progressing realistically from merely a self-absorbed heel to a real psychopath. The sets are nicely done and while the film may not feel wholly at place in Southern Gothic territory, at least it doesn't seem like Los Angeles either. Great music by George Antheil. Pretty decent Kino DVD transfer.