Secret Beyond the Door

[Bronxgirl48]

I agree with Andree and Hibi that Redgrave is miscast, and let me add Anne Revere. She is a bit less pontificating here than everywhere else I've seen her, but no less annoying (to me). Every word out of that woman's mouth on-screen wants to teach us Life Lessons and I always feel like a delinquent student who just does not want to listen.

[jamesjazzguitar]

I agree with Andree and Hibi that Redgrave is miscast, and let me add Anne Revere. She is a bit less pontificating here than everywhere else I've seen her, but no less annoying (to me). Every word out of that woman's mouth on-screen wants to teach us Life Lessons and I always feel like a delinquent student who just does not want to listen.

You're so on target about Anne Revere. Just imagine how Philip Schuyler Green felt!

[Hibi]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one, because I'm a fan of Fritz Lang and Joan Bennett.

Those last thirty minutes or so were quite a trip, lol.

A fine critic who used to post here as JackFavell had a most interesting take on SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR. Apparently that discussion was on the late lamented TCM site rather than here as I had remembered. Her view of the film was as follows:

SPOILER ALERT:

She suggested that everything after Joan Bennett screams when she sees a man in the mist is Redgrave's dream, hallucination, or justification. If you recall, the next scene after the scream is where Redgrave puts himself on trial. JF proposed that the rest of the film is how Redgrave would like things to have been, instead of the reality of his having killed Joan after she screamed.

I don't know that I agree, but it does make a certain kind of sense.

Jack Favell was a woman??

[Bronxgirl48]

Yes, her name is Wendy.

[Bronxgirl48]

I agree with Andree and Hibi that Redgrave is miscast, and let me add Anne Revere. She is a bit less pontificating here than everywhere else I've seen her, but no less annoying (to me). Every word out of that woman's mouth on-screen wants to teach us Life Lessons and I always feel like a delinquent student who just does not want to listen.

You're so on target about Anne Revere. Just imagine how Philip Schuyler Green felt!

lol, nah, Ma cheered him on all the way! "Yes, Phil, I sure want to be around a long time....."

[Hibi]

I agree with Andree and Hibi that Redgrave is miscast, and let me add Anne Revere. She is a bit less pontificating here than everywhere else I've seen her, but no less annoying (to me). Every word out of that woman's mouth on-screen wants to teach us Life Lessons and I always feel like a delinquent student who just does not want to listen.

That's why GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT works for me. With Anne Revere as a mother, Gregory Peck will feel more comfortable with the priggish Dorothy McGuire than with the sophisticated Celeste Holm. He also wants to teach us Life Lessons, not thinking of the possible cost to his son. He is his mother's son. Mother grants or withholds her favor depending on what she thinks of his behavior. It all makes sense.

LOL!

[Bronxgirl48]

I agree with Andree and Hibi that Redgrave is miscast, and let me add Anne Revere. She is a bit less pontificating here than everywhere else I've seen her, but no less annoying (to me). Every word out of that woman's mouth on-screen wants to teach us Life Lessons and I always feel like a delinquent student who just does not want to listen.

That's why GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT works for me. With Anne Revere as a mother, Gregory Peck will feel more comfortable with the priggish Dorothy McGuire than with the sophisticated Celeste Holm. He also wants to teach us Life Lessons, not thinking of the possible cost to his son. He is his mother's son. Mother grants or withholds her favor depending on what she thinks of his behavior. It all makes sense.

Ha! Dottie was socially priggish but not (it was implied) in the, uh, romance department. Celeste was just desperate, lol. Poor girl, thinking she could land a dreamboat like Phil.

[speedracer5]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one, because I'm a fan of Fritz Lang and Joan Bennett.

Those last thirty minutes or so were quite a trip, lol.

A fine critic who used to post here as JackFavell had a most interesting take on SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR. Apparently that discussion was on the late lamented TCM site rather than here as I had remembered. Her view of the film was as follows:

SPOILER ALERT:

She suggested that everything after Joan Bennett screams when she sees a man in the mist is Redgrave's dream, hallucination, or justification. If you recall, the next scene after the scream is where Redgrave puts himself on trial. JF proposed that the rest of the film is how Redgrave would like things to have been, instead of the reality of his having killed Joan after she screamed.

I don't know that I agree, but it does make a certain kind of sense.

I'm late to the conversation but I watched this movie as well when it aired a couple weeks ago. I thought this movie was odd, but I strangely liked it. The ending reminded me of Rebecca, but it also seemed so random. If Barbara O'Neil's character was supposed to be like Mrs. Danvers, I wish that she'd been featured more. I think that Fritz Lang could have easily combined Barbara O'Neil and Anne Revere's characters into a single Mrs. Danvers-esque character. Neither woman's character really seemed all that important to the overall storyline. I was so used to seeing Revere playing the dour humorless woman, that seeing her in a contemporary setting and actually smiling was somewhat off-putting. I get that her character was older than Michael Redgrave's and that he'd spent his entire life being controlled by a woman, whether it was his mother or his sister; but I wished that her presence was more ominous, more creepy. O'Neil was just a weird character and she didn't really lend anything to the story, other than her being employed by Redgrave out of guilt more than anything else. I was happy when Redgrave's son left the story. This is terrible, but his voice got on my nerves and I didn't want to hear it anymore.

I liked Michael Redgrave more in "The Lady Vanishes" than in "Secret Beyond the Door." He just didn't seem charming and psychotic enough to lure Joan Bennett in while also building the weird rooms that were an homage to famous murders. I think that the murder rooms would have been better if they were recreations of rooms where Redgrave's previous wives had died mysteriously, and he was some type of black widow or something. I get that perhaps recreating his first wife's or Joan Bennett's bedroom was maybe his way of inserting himself into the echelon of great murders or something; but I think using the murder rooms as some sort of homage to himself would be more psychotic. He also didn't really come across as crazy to me, he came across more as an angry man than anything else. I wish that someone like Claude Rains, Alan Ladd, or maybe Errol Flynn, someone who could be charming, but also add an element of danger or wickedness. I could see Flynn playing a character similar to his one from "Cry Wolf."

I think the best character in this film was definitely Joan Bennett. I liked the idea that she would basically be turned on by Michael Redgrave and the other man fighting, and she seemed even more turned on when the thrown knife narrowly missed stabbing her hand. I wish that her motivation for marrying Redgrave would have been made a little more clearer, or if we'd seen more scenes of him romancing her or something. While it most definitely was an impetuous decision on their parts, it comes across as a very naive decision as well. I am okay with the whirlwind romance, but I think there needed to be more exposition. I liked her scenes at the end. Though much like other 1940s films that depict psychology, it seems that Michael Redgrave's therapy session (so to speak) and Joan's assessment of his condition seemed a bit rushed and too pat. This is a man who builds replicas of rooms where famous murders took place and we're supposed to believe that his whole issue boils down to being constantly dominated by women? Now he's cured and they'll live happily ever after?

I do like the idea that the scenes after Joan screams are a dream. That would definitely make more sense, since after that part, I kept saying "what?" "what?" "what?" after each successive scene. Regardless of some of the flaws in this film, I thought it was interesting and would watch it again. It was one of those films that when it ended, I was like "wait? that was the ending? what?"