bkoganbing
The most interesting aspect of House By The River is the fact that it was produced at Republic Pictures, the home of Roy Rogers and several other B movie cowboys and the values those pictures put forth. Hardly the place for a moody and atmospheric thriller that examines a man's moral degeneracy directed by Fritz Lang who always likes to explore the dark. One thing that does mark this as a Republic film is the usual Herbert J. Yates economy.But for a director like Lang who was used to exploring shadowy worlds, economy on the set isn't a hindrance, though back in Germany this man directed the opulent Metropolis. House By The River delivers the most for its meager budget.Louis Hayward who was a poor man's Tyrone Power and like Power could play straight heroes and hero/heels gets his Nightmare Alley type role as the rich and idle writer who just can't move the writer's block. He takes a real fancy to maid Dorothy Patrick and when she repulses his advances, Hayward kills her. He gets older and club footed brother Lee Bowman to dump the body in the river. But as dead bodies will do, they bloat and have a nasty habit of floating to the top.Lang and Hayward create a really frightening picture of moral degeneracy that would have resonated well with post World War II audiences who had just defeated a nation gripped in the philosophy that it was a race of super people. Jane Wyatt gets her innings in playing Hayward's wife who Bowman also loved and who starts thinking that maybe she married the wrong brother.I have to single out Jody Gilbert from the cast who plays Bowman's housekeeper and who Bowman takes his frustrations out on after he's helped Hayward. She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and misreads all of Bowman's signals and later does him damage at a coroner's inquest. I'm not sure how much money House By The River brought in to Republic Pictures, but it is a minor masterpiece for this studio.
Spikeopath
House by the River is directed by Fritz Lang and adapted by Mel Dinelli from A.P. Herbert's novel The House on the River. It stars Louis Hayward, Jane Wyatt, Lee Bowman & Dorothy Patrick. Music is by George Antheil and photography by Edward J. Cronjager.Novelist Stephen Byrne (Hayward) makes a play for the house maid and unwittingly kills her when she repels his advances. Enlisting the help of his disabled brother, John (Bowman), to dispose of the body in the river, Stephen suddenly finds that the publicity surrounding the maid's disappearance has put him in vogue again. In fact he finds his muse sufficiently stoked enough to craft another novel. But as easy as Stephen finds it easy to have no conscience, the opposite is the case with John, and with the river refusing to hold its secrets, something is going to give.Working out of Republic pictures, Lang refused to let the low budget production hamper his vision of a bleak Cain & Abel like Gothic-noir-melodrama. He did, however, meet some resistance when requesting that the maid be played by a black woman, which was quickly shot down by nervous executives at the famed "B" movie studio. House by the River is far from being among the best of Lang's work, but the final product is still a triumph considering it's basically a three character piece set virtually in just two locations. It scores high on eerie atmosphere and finds Lang dealing in moral bankruptcy/responsibility and the eye for an eye mentality. Ushered into the narrative, too, is a Lang fave of people irked by loving someone they can't have. These themes allow the director to gloss over the simple script and dally in some truly arresting visuals.Aided considerably by Cronjager's (Desert Fury/CanyonPassage) chiaroscuro photography, Lang's film is a lesson in how to maximise effect from limited sets. The actual house on the river, and that of the neighbour (resplendent with creepy scarecrow in garden), has a very disquiet feel to it, fronted by shimmering water that carries the dead carcass' of animals, it's a most haunting setting. And the eerie atmosphere continues inside the house, where shadows work their wonders and Antheil's music sticks rigidly (and rightly) to the creaky house formula. The cast don't pull up any trees, but they don't need to. Hayward is perhaps too animated for a study in snide villainy, but it works and he has a nice line in visual mocking. The rest fall in line for what is required, with the best of the bunch being Ann Shoemaker as nosey neighbour Mrs. Ambrose.Once a hard to find film, House by the River is now easily accessible after gaining a DVD release (the print is fine, some age spotting and crackles, but completely watchable). It's a film that is easily recommended to Lang and Gothic house based movie purists. Driven by a despicable protagonist and cloaked in a creepy noirish vibe, it deserves to now gain a better and more appreciative audience. 7.5/10
zardoz-13
Although director Fritz Lang's "House by the River" doesn't rank as one of his major films, such as "M," "Metropolis," "Fury," or "The Big Heat," this morbid Victorian melodrama about murder most foul contains enough of his characteristic themes to make it rewarding for people who fancy his films. Several reasons account for its lackluster stature. First, Republic Studios produced and released "House by the River" and Republic wasn't a prominent studio like MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, or Twentieth Century Fox, though the great John Ford made pictures at Republic. Second, the talent is strictly second tier. Louis Hayward never achieved the stardom of earlier Lang stars, such as Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Ray Milland, and Walter Pidgeon. Nevertheless, Hayward acquits himself splendidly in the role of a treacherous murderer who has no qualms about doing whatever it takes to save his neck, even if it means shifting the blame to his brother. The remainder of the cast is serviceable, except for Jody Gilbert who is perfectly cast as the fatuous housekeeper of the protagonist's brother. Still, nobody can top the wicked Hayward whose character waxes and wanes from one extreme, sniveling fear at the thought of being arrested to obnoxious egotism."House by the River" occurs largely on studio sets. First, the murder takes place in the protagonist's dimly lighted mansion. Second, some scenes unfold in one room of his crippled brother's residence. Third, an inquest is conducted in a courtroom. Fourth, the protagonist and his brother ply the river in a boat in long shots of an actual river and a studio tank for the closer shots. Fifth, several scenes transpire on the grounds of the mansion and on a nearby dock. All in all, "House by the River" is appropriately claustrophobic. The river assumes an ominous character of its own, especially the jumping fish that preys on the protagonist's paranoia. Despite its modest surrounding, Lang and his cinematographer do an excellent job of conveying information about the various characters. The imagery has a haunting quality that indicates that Lang was a master of crime movies, even though he labored under less than stellar conditions. Although the melodrama is conventional in every sense of the word, Lang's camera-work and the mise-en-scene that he evokes is far from ordinary. He does a terrific job of depicting suspicion, murder, paranoia, and the toll that gossip takes on an individual.The problem with "House by the River" is that you know what is going to happen for the most part because Hollywood movies of the 1950s always punished the murderer. In other words, crime never paid and the villains got their comeuppance. Scenarist Mel Dinelli derived his screenplay from A. P. Herbert's novel. Lang and he cultivate a modicum of suspense, but not enough to have you wringing your hands. Actually, it is fun—in a perverse way—to watch the unscrupulous Hayward tries to get away with his crime, but like previous Lang murderers, he is so warped that he can never escape the consequences of his acts.A middling crime novelist, Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward of "Anthony Adverse") murders his wife's maid, Emily (Dorothy Patrick of "Follow Me Quietly"), by accident. Stephen accosts her as she descends the stair after bathing in his wife's bathroom and wearing her perfume and tries to kiss her. It seems that Stephen had a drink and looked up to see a pair of curvaceous thighs coming down the stairs and couldn't control himself. Emily deflects his lustful advances, screams when he refuses to let her pass, and keeps on screaming irrationally until he strangles her to death. Stephen is distracted by the appearance of a nosy next door neighbor, Mrs. Ambrose (Anne Shoemaker of "They Won't Forget"), and assures Emily that he will release her if she only shuts up. Tragically, Emily doesn't stop screaming and Stephen kills her with his bare hands. No sooner has Stephen murdered her than sometime comes knocking at his door. Stephen cowers near the corpse hoping that the individual at the door will go away. Just when he thinks this person has left, the individual surprises Stephen and enters by the back door. Stephen is relieved when he realizes that it is only his crippled brother John (Lee Bowman of "Bataan") who walks with a limp and earns his living as an accountant. Stephen convinces John not to go the police because he fears that the authorities won't believe his story. Initially, Stephen lies to John and tells him that Emily fell down the stairs. Against his best instincts, John decides to aid and abet Stephen. It seems that John has helped Stephen out of other jams. Just when John decides to change his mind, Stephen lies that his wife Marjorie (Jane Wyatt) is going to have a baby. Reluctantly, John helps Stephen dispose of the body in the river. Earlier, in the first scenes, Mrs. Ambrose complained that the currents of the river conveyed hideous sites. Anyway, Stephen and John dispose of Emily's body in the river, but the body comes back on them like everything else. John's guilty conscience gets the best of him and his nosy housekeeper, Miss Bantam (Jody Gilbert), suggests that his erratic behavior after Emily's mysterious disappearance is proof that he had something to do with her death. Meanwhile, Stephen unravels and tries to kill his own brother and implicate him for Emily's death. The authorities never catch up with Stephen. His paranoia proves his undoing in a wild comeuppance that has him strangling himself in a curtain that he believes his Emily. Good performances, good atmosphere, and Lang's sure hand at the helm make this melodrama better than a lesser director would have made it.
