srowley75 wrote:I own a very old VHS, but I will probably record it just to see what the print quality is like.
I think you will be very pleased with the restored print from UCLA. It is exceptionally beautiful and far better than I remember seeing it 20 years ago.
Mr. Arkadin wrote:The Secret Beyond the Door has a very serious tone and there is never any levity in the film. Scarlet Street is more balanced than these two bookends. It has humor and lots of underlying jokes and jabs, but it also has a deadly serious element as well.
I have to disagree a little about the levity in
Secret Beyond the Door. While the tone is somber and dream-like, and all the actors approached their roles with seriousness, some of the characters, particularly
Barbara O'Neil's Miss Robey, who is a fairly outrageous figure, a smart aleck college girl (
Marie Harmon) touring the rooms, and the socialite character portrayed by
Natalie Schaefer have some pretty amusing moments. The latter two both make remarks that could be facetiously interpreted and are an interesting commentary on the Freudian underpinnings of the plot--which might indicate Lang's lingering skepticism about psychology's ability to solve or even comprehend the puzzle of human behavior.
Mr. Arkadin wrote:The Secret Beyond the Door finally gets airplay on TCM! Can a proper DVD release be far behind?
I believe that a DVD may be in the future, especially since The Treasures from the UCLA Film and Television Archive just finished touring the country showing this movie, along with others, with considerable success at various venues. As usual,legalities and economics are bound to complicate this eventuality. The press release about all the films that TCM is showing this month courtesy of their relationship with UCLA Film and Television Archive is
here.
I was so mad at myself when I discovered that I could have seen
Secret... on the big screen at nearby Cornell in Ithaca in August!! I gotta start checking their site more often for the next tour.
Mr. Arkadin wrote:While we all have favorites, artistically, I can't place one of these films above another. They are three chapters in a book written by Bennett and Lang and should be viewed as such.
I know I'm dreaming (as Joan B. says in one scene, "Calling Dr. Freud!") but I would love to see
Man Hunt, Scarlet Street, Woman in the Window and
Secret Beyond the Door broadcast together on TCM as a primetime event with the archivists from UCLA and perhaps
Brian Kellow (Joan's biographer, along with her family in
The Bennetts) and
Patrick McGilligan (Lang's biographer in
Fritz Lang: Nature of the Beast) involved in a round table discussion of these movies. Oh, and while we're fantasizing, how about a focus for a night (or a month?) on the cinematographer
Stanley Cortez?
I can't wait for you guys to see this movie. It's far from a masterpiece, but I found it fascinating.