The Secret Beyond the Door (Lang, 1947): Cinema Museum, 7.30pm
This presentation comes with an accompanying essay and introduction by curator, Arta Barzanji, and is part of the 'Not Lynch' season from Cinema Year Zero at the Cinema Museum. You can find details of the near year-long season here.Time Out review:
An example of Hollywood's mooncalf affair with Freud during the '40s,
ending in an absurd instant cure for psychopathy. But the premise is
fascinating, and fraught with Gothic overtones as Joan Bennett's heroine
('This is not the time to think of danger', she murmurs at the outset,
shaking off premonition, 'this is my wedding day') gradually realises
that, married to an architect (Michael Redgrave) who literally and obsessively
'collects' rooms in which murders have occurred, she must uncover the
secret of the one room always kept locked. Fritz Lang himself didn't think
much of the film, but nevertheless set it under his usual sign of
destiny ('This is not the time to think of danger...') and invested it
with roots in older myths of the magic power of love. His direction is
masterly, imposing meanings and tensions through images that are spare,
resonant and astonishingly beautiful. A remarkable film.
Tom Milne
Here (and above) is an extract.
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