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The Woman in the Window – Kino Lorber (Blu-ray)

Theatrical Release Date: USA, 1944
Director: Fritz Lang
Writers: Nunnally Johnson, J.H. Wallis
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon, Dan Duryea, Thomas E. Jackson, Dorothy Peterson, Arthur Loft

Release Date: June 19th, 2018
Approximate Running Time: 99 Minutes 34 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1 Aspect Ratio / 1080 Progressive / MPEG-4 AVC
Rating: NR
Sound: DTS-HD Mono English
Subtitles: English
Region Coding: Region A
Retail Price: $19.95

"With his wife and kids out of town, the chaste professor engages in an innocent flirtation with a chance acquaintance (Joan Bennett, Scarlet Street) and inadvertently commits a shocking and unspeakable crime. But that's just the beginning of his problems, for as the cunning D.A. (Raymond Massey, The Hurricane) - one of Wanley's dearest friends – gets closer and closer to identifying the killer, Wanley finds he's more and more willing to resort to desperate measures to avoid being caught." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 3.25/5

Here’s the information provided about this release's transfer, "Newly Mastered in HD."

The Woman in the Window comes on a 25 GB single layer Blu-ray.

Disc Size: 20 GB

Kino Lorber Feature: 17.4 GB

Eureka Video Feature: 28.7 GB

Though the source used for Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray release is in great shape. The result is a transfer that looks noticeably different from the transfer Eureka Video used for their Blu-ray release. Also, it should be noted that Eureka Video’s release dedicated 11.3 GB more to the main feature than Kino Lorber’s release.

Audio: 4/5

This release comes with one audio option, a DTS-HD mono mix in English and included with this release are removable English subtitles. The audio sounds, clean, clear and balanced throughout.

Extras:

Extras for this release include reversible cover art, a theatrical trailer for The Woman in the Window (1 minute 44 seconds, DTS-HD mono English, no subtitles) and an audio commentary with film historian Imogen Sara Smith.

Other extras include trailers for A Bullet for Joey, Daisy Kenyon, 99 River Street and Cry of the City.

Extras on Eureka Video’s Blu-ray release include theatrical trailer (1 minute 43 seconds, LPCM mono English, no subtitles), a video essay by critic David Cairns titled Framed (22 minutes 35 seconds, LPCM stereo English, no subtitles), an audio commentary with film historian Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City and a booklet with cast & crew credits, an essay Sick of Love: Fantasies of Violence in Fritz Lang’s The Woman in the Window written by Samm Deighan, an essay titled Fritz Lang’s The Woman in the Window written by Amy Simmons, rare archival imagery and information about the transfer titled Notes on Viewing.

Summary:

Though, Fritz Lang’s Film Noirs are widely regarded as some of the best films to emerge from this genre. The Film Noirs directed by Fritz Lang prior to Scarlet Street are not what one would expect to see in a Film Noir. A case in point is The Woman in the Window, a film that owes as much to Film Noir as it does to the fantasy films that Fritz Lang directed in the 1920’s.

With that being said, there are many elements in The Woman in the Window that have become synonymous with Film Noir. The inventive way in which Fritz Lang uses these familiar elements sets The Woman in the Window apart from its contemporaries.

The Woman in the Window's plot revolves around a protagonist who’s entangled with a femme fatale who leads him down a dark path. And because of his moment of indiscretion, he’s forced to cover up a crime that would not have happened if he had never met this femme fatale. His desperation increases as the decisions that he’s making put him in a place that only has one outcome.

Performance-wise, the cast are very good in their respective roles, especially Joan Bennett (Highway Dragnet, Suspiria) in the role of a femme fatale named Alice Reed, a woman whose portrait in the window catches the protagonists’ attention. She delivers an extraordinary performance that has a dreamlike quality, and it goes against the grain of what one typically expects from a femme fatale.

Another performance of note is that of Edward G. Robinson (Little Caesar, The Stranger) in the role of this film’s protagonist, a psychiatrist named Richard Wanley. He delivers a solid performance that perfectly captures his character's state of mind. Other notable cast members include Raymond Massey (The Old Dark House, Arsenic and Old Lace) in the role of District Attorney Frank Lalor and Dan Duryea (Black Angel, Too Late for Tears) in the role of a blackmailer.

From a production standpoint, The Woman in the Window is a film where everything perfectly falls into place. The premise is superbly realized, the well-executed narrative does a great job maintaining the mounting tension, and the visuals are overflowing with atmosphere. Standout moments include the scene where the protagonist murders a man in Alice Reed’s apartment, the scene that introduces the blackmailer, and this film’s finale is arguably one of the greatest twist endings in cinema history.

The Woman in the Window gets a good release from Kino Lorber that has a transfer that looks drastically different than the transfer used for Eureka Video’s Blu-ray release.

Kino Lorber