The Woman In The Window (1944)

With his wife (Dorothy Peterson) and children away on vacation, a college professor (Edward G. Robinson) accepts an invitation from a beautiful stranger (Joan Bennett) to come to her apartment to look at some art work. When her lover (Arthur Loft) barges in, he attacks the professor who in self defense stabs him to death with a pair of scissors. Instead of going to the police, they decide to dispose of the body and cover up the killing. Bad idea! Based on the novel ONCE OFF GUARD by J.H. Wallis, Fritz Lang's film noir is a strong, tense nailbiter with Robinson very effective as an ordinary man who finds himself caught up in a situation that he's losing control over. Bennett plays one of her more sympathetic femme fatales, certainly more sympathetic than the slut she would play in Lang's SCARLET STREET, again with Robinson, the next year. It has, unfortunately, one of the most cowardly endings ever in a film noir, clearly a sop to the Production Code, it's an embarrassment. Up till that point, it's first rate and compelling. The underscore by Arthur Lange and Hugo Friedhofer copped an Oscar nomination. With Dan Duryea (who would join Robinson and Bennett in Lang's SCARLET STREET), Raymond Massey and Iris Adrian.