ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

hrkepler 'Secret Beyond the Door' is far from Fritz Lang's greatest (American)films, but that should be enough for real film-noir fans. The film supposed to be Lang's version of (much much better) 'Rebecca' - a psychological film-noir. There are some similarities between the two film, but 'Secret Beyond the Door' might seem too melodramatic and camp to capture the exact eerie feel like Hitchcock does with 'Rebecca'. These two films have been compared so much, I think I don't need to fall into deeper with my analyses between them two.'Secret Beyond the Door' still manages to be captivating and entertaining enough. Joan Bennett's trance like narration about closed door in herself, gives the film kind off dream like vibe. As one of the main character is running a magazine about architecture, then it is even more enjoyable to look how Lang have used architecture and how important role it plays in the film.Melodramatic, but murky psycho thriller.

fbarthet The Great Fritz did not like that movie. I do.OK, this is not one of his really best. But this is still a very good film. People who pay too much attention to the "Psychoanalysis" side of the movie are missing the point. It is true that the reason given for the hero "psychosis" is a bit (a bit?) weak and the way he is "cured" miraculously at the very end is simply laughable (that's why Mr Lang did not like the movie, he was German and did not like when rationality was thrown away through the window).But the general atmosphere is gripping from beginning to the end. There is a constant tension with each moment of relaxation quickly followed by another anxious discovery. The play on the shadows (ah la la, that black and white!!!), the use of the mansion as one of the character of the movie, all that is very enjoyable.The acting is excellent too. Michael Redgrave is good playing a very seductive, charming, ... and bloody annoying man. His character is weak and self-absorbed but still likable.But Joan Bennett is here for him. She never achieved the same status than Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwick but was a dedicated actress able to play a socialite or a whore, a real bitch or a pure heroin. She is really excellent in the role of a normal woman confronted to an abnormal situation and risking everything to save the man she loves. Her character actually matures during the process. It is good to see a strong woman leading the charge. It is not all that frequent in Hollywood in the 40's (or later...).The movie was not a success. Maybe the public saw it as a reminiscence of "Spellbound" (an woman who risks everything to save the deranged man she loves. Freud, Freud, Freud again and again). I love "Spellbound". Maybe that's why I love "Secret behind the Door...". Because of it and not in spite of it.

vintageartist57 Rather tepid 1940s thriller. Joan Bennett is beautiful, however, as is the cinematography. Really strikingly shot, which makes it well worth watching; it is reminiscent of Spellbound in parts, with a surreal edge to some of the backdrops.The story, very loosely based on the old Bluebeard fairy tale, is interesting, but the pacing of the film is off, and you never really feel much tension. There are some interesting characters in the house, especially the secretary, but they aren't very developed. So much more could have been done in this area, to make it a truly great film.Without giving anything away, I doubt many of us would have made the same decision that the main characters did in the end. But don't let that distract you from the truly beautiful fashion of this film.

oparthenon I did not like this film. I did not like it at all. Hence be prepared, for my comments are entirely negative. I too love Hitchcock, and I place him and Fritz Lang in the front line of innovative directors from the Golden Age of cinema...but even Homer nodded, as the expression goes, and there is much in Hitchcock that can make one yawn, fidget in one's seat, and ultimately get up and change the DVD. The Parradine Case and the disastrous Mr and Mrs Smith are often cited as Hitch-failures, but for me, Rebecca and The Lady Vanishes are also both unwatchable: drab, dreary, confusing, cheerless, humourless, one-note films with excessively mannered acting and production values that shout out, "Please look at me, I'm a (gothic, noir, or what-have-you) film." Secret Beyond the Door joins these over-the-top scorchers; to me, these films are all failures at what used to be called "women's weepies" (films made chiefly with the female audience in mind) with noir and Gothic elements added with a view towards widening the audience appeal.In Secret Beyond the Door, Lang (or someone who paid Lang a sum of money) clearly wanted to make a film to rival Hitch, and he chose -- dismayingly, as far as I'm concerned -- Rebecca as his model. I enter a plea of guilty, as Cecil Vyse in Forster's Room With a View would have remarked: I did not care for Miklos Rosza's excessively worked-up score, Stanley Cortez' unremarkable cinematography, and Lang's lustreless direction, which goes nowhere (ex: the town Michael Redgrave's Mark lives in is Levender Falls...when we arrive there with Joan Bennet's Celia, where are we? Nowhere. A colourless, non-descript postcard blown up for the background matte shot...a few bicycles, someone dressed up like a porter...we could be anywhere and are nowhere. Besides, what does Levender Falls mean? Spoiled lavender? ***spoiler*** Later at the station Joan Bennet picks what looks like a sprig of lavender and puts it in her lapel before running to greet Mark as he gets off the train...as he is about to kiss her, he spies the lavender and goes into this crazy trance that marks his obsessive-compulsive neurosis. ***end spoiler*** All of this is photographed as if we are at a Sunday school picnic and Lang and Cortez are scoutmasters.)There are so many other examples of trite imagery, stale sets, and failure to follow up on motivic set-ups, that they are not worth mentioning. The one plus is Joan Bennet, looking remarkably luminous in this film and as breezy and nonchalant as ever -- though I must admit she was never so good as she was in Lang's true Hollywood masterpiece, Woman in the Window. Proof that a strong script and committed actors can provide a director with the impetus needed to work a celluloid miracle.Unfortunately somebody was asleep at the wheel in Secret Beyond the Door, and it wasn't the audience.A film to skip unless you are a devoted Lang aficionado (as I am) who wants to watch even the bad ones that blooped up from his Hollywood era.