
“Some Men Destroy What They Love Most!”
After a whirlwind romance in Mexico, a beautiful heiress marries a man she barely knows with hardly a second thought. She finds his New York home full of his strange relations, and macabre rooms that are replicas of famous murder sites. One locked room contains the secret to her husband's obsession, and the truth about what happened to his first wife.
Release Date: 12/24/1947
Runtime: 99 minutes
Languages: English
Director: Fritz Lang
Budget: $1.5M
0Companies: Diana Productions, Universal Pictures, Melange Pictures
Countries: United States of America
CinemaSerf
I rather enjoyed this film - Fritz Lang leaves much of the intrigue to emanate from own imagination. "Celia" (Joan Bennett) meets and quickly falls in love with Michael Redgrave ("Mark"), an enigmatic gent from a family that has known better days. They decamp to his remote family mansion where she meets his sister, and his teenage son - of whom she was hitherto unaware. Things all start to take a turn for the strange once she arrives; her husband collects "rooms" - he recreates the rooms where historically macabre events have happened. There is a room in their home that he keeps locked - what's inside? Her paranoia, fuelled by some eerily lit scenarios and a good, suspicion-arousing performance from Redgrave gradually builds into quite a tense denouement. It has shades of "Rebecca" (1940) about it - the sister "Caroline" (Anne Revere) assuming the role of the mysteriously obsessive third party and there is enough ambiguity going on to keep it interesting until the end.

Joan Bennett
Celia Lamphere

Michael Redgrave
Mark Lamphere

Anne Revere
Caroline Lamphere

Barbara O'Neil
Miss Robey

Natalie Schafer
Edith Potter

Paul Cavanagh
Rick Barrett

Anabel Shaw
Intellectual Sub-Deb
Rosa Rey
Paquita

James Seay
Bob Dwight
Mark Dennis
David Lamphere
Robert Barber
Altar Boy (uncredited)
Ray Beltram
Townsman (uncredited)
2018

1949

1950

2018

2010

1946

1957

2015

1953

1999

1998

1990

1959