SYNOPSICS
The Window (1949) is a English movie. Ted Tetzlaff has directed this movie. Bobby Driscoll,Barbara Hale,Arthur Kennedy,Paul Stewart are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1949. The Window (1949) is considered one of the best Drama,Film-Noir,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
At the age of 9, Tommy Woodry has a reputation for telling tall tales -- the latest one being that his family is moving from Manhattan to a ranch out west. When the landlord interrupts the Woodrys at dinner to show their about-to-be-vacated apartment, the Woodrys tell Tommy enough is enough. Then that hot summer night Tommy decides to sleep on the fire escape -- outside the Kellerson's apartment, since it is a story higher and gets more breeze. Tommy sees the Kellersons kill a man. Tommy's parents and the police won't believe his story. But the Kellersons want to silence him.
The Window (1949) Reviews
Most Convincing Child Performance!
"THE BOY CRIED ' WOLF' 'WOLF' SEVERAL TIMES AND EACH TIME THE PEOPLE CAME TO HELP HIM THEY FOUND THERE WASN'T ANY 'WOLF' ". Aesop's Fables RKO certainly lived up to its reputation as the finest creators of Film Noir with this taut and suspenseful thriller made in 1947. Held back, for some reason, by Howard Hughes until a 1949 release THE WINDOW was based on a story by Cornell Woolrich that became a splendid screenplay by Mel Dinelli. Photographed in stunning crisp Monochrome by William Steiner it was directed with unrivaled regard to tension and impact by Ted Tetzlaff. With no marquee names to speak of and costing a modest sum to produce on the streets of New York's Lower East Side the picture was a great success with both critics and public alike. The story of THE WINDOW concerns a 10 year boy Tommy Woodry (Bobby Driscoll) who just loves to spin yarns and tell tall tales. He lives in a modest apartment with his parents (Arthur Kennedy and Barbara Hale) in the lower East Side of New York city where his playground is the dilapidated tenements that surround him. One warm night he awakens and because of the heat takes his pillow out on to the fire escape to sleep. Here he witnesses a murder under the window shade of an adjoining apartment. But being the great story teller he is no one will believe him. No one, that is, except the killers themselves (Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman) who now must find a way to silence the boy. From here on the film never lets up. It becomes a white knuckle ride as Tommy tries to escape the killers clutches down alley ways and across the dodgy rooftops of dangerous tenements. The picture ends with one of the killers falling to his death and Tommy being reunited with his parents who finally believe him. Now he makes a solemn promise never to cry 'Wolf' again. Adding greatly to the thrills is the marvellous music score by RKO's Noir composer in residence Roy Webb. With a terrific main theme, heard in its broadest form under the titles, there is also some splendid eerie music for the stalking scenes and exciting action cues for the chase sequences. But there is little doubt that the film is held tightly together and dominated by the outstanding central performance from the ill-fated 10 year old Bobby Driscoll. You simply cannot take your eyes off him. An amazing little actor, it is a great shame he never got to have a full career in film. But it was never to be! Fate had other plans for him. He was to be plagued with bad luck for the rest of his days. First he suffered with severe acne in his teens which halted his film career. Then he was arrested and sent to jail on drugs charges. When he was released his reputation proceeded him and he was unemployable in Hollywood. Later he made a couple of stabs at supporting roles in films of no repute. But he never regained even the slightest spark of his childhood genius. With his career virtually over he became a drug abuser again. In 1968 - and ironically in the same setting as his greatest success in the film THE WINDOW - two children playing found his dead body in a derelict tenement in New York's Lower East Side. He was only 31 years old. It is quite inconceivable that for someone who had demonstrated such a mighty talent should finish up unknown, unclaimed and sadly come to be buried in a pauper's grave on Hart Island.
Crying Wolf has never been so deadly...or as entertaining!!
While this film noir is listed as unavailable on DVD, I took a chance and purchased a "collector's" DVD copy on ebay, something I didn't condone until I realized that some of these old films will never be released and only exist as public domain property in 16mm prints. That being said, I watched "The Window" on an unlabeled DVD-R copy and was very impressed with the quality of both the audio and video. I've purchased other "legit" releases only to find the packaging far superior in quality to the program. "The Window" features a very plausible plot set in a run down urban neighborhood full of tenements and condemned buildings. A nine-year old boy with a vivid imagination and a reputation for telling tall tales, witnesses a murder by his upstairs neighbors while sleeping on the fire escape one sweltering summer night. After going to his dismissing parents, then to the police without their consent, he is sent on his way into a nightmarish experience. The suspenseful sequences are masterfully paced, and there really isn't a slow moment in the film. I would definitely buy this film if, one day, it's released in commercial packaging. Tense, taut and brilliantly done on the obviously low budget.
Claustrophobic thriller
The claustrophobic cinematography makes this film. You feel cramped and trapped as does our young hero. The tenements are lit just enough for you to imaging all sorts of horrors within. The ending was evidently rushed and a bit hokey; the director et al. could have fleshed it out a bit more This is a very real film, in that we all know children who 'fabricate' as easily as they breath. Bobby Driscoll was superb. I've never seen his Disney work -- now I'll keep my eye out for his name. I loved seeing a younger Arthur Kennedy (before he played only drunks) and a plain but always pretty Barbara Hale (pre-Perry Mason). Both were excellent and demonstrated a range I never gave them credit for.
Exceptional little thriller of a child's worst nightmare...
The theme of a murder being witnessed by someone who no one believes, is based on the familiar concept of "cry wolf once too often and no one will believe you when you're telling the truth". Here it's played to the nth degree by an excellent cast--Bobby Driscoll, Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Ruth Roman and Paul Stewart--and directed in realistic, gritty style by Ted Tetzlaff. The New York tenement setting is an absorbing environment for this chilling tale of a boy who is in danger when the murderers know they have been seen--and must come to grips with his situation without the aid of his parents or police. Based on a Cornell Woolrich story, it's so tight and suspenseful for the length of its running time that it effectively projects the dark, nightmare world where one's worst childhood fears can come true. With the dark ambiance of lower East Side tenaments as its setting, danger and death seem to entrap the boy in every lurking shadow until his ultimate pursuit by the killers. This is a modest thriller that achieves a maximum of suspense thanks to the skillful performance by child star Bobby Driscoll and bears a resemblance to other Woolrich stories, as for example 'Rear Window'. Barbara Hale and Arthur Kennedy register strongly as the parents. Ruth Roman and Paul Stewart are a chilly pair as the neighbors from hell.
A ten-year-old with an overactive imagination is subjected to a night of real big city terror in 1949.
"The Window" is a rich and underrated tale of urban terror from a ten-year-old's perspective. Tommy Woodry is jolted from his innocent world of make believe games when he witnesses a murder in the middle of the night. Making the terror all the worse is that the murderers are his upstairs neighbors, the Kellertons, and neither the police nor his parents will believe his story. The terror grows darker when Tommy's only protection, his parents, leave for the night because of shift work and family illness. The music and lighting brilliantly reflect the evil that begins with nightfall and the removal of his parents. When the Kellertons kidnap Tommy, even pretending to be his parents to fool the police, bad "parents" replace the good ones. "The Window", in a way, is the opposite of the classic "These Three" of thirteen years earlier. In the latter, the lies of a young girl (Bonita Granville) regarding adult wrongdoing are believed without reservation, with swift and devastating consequences. "The Window" also nicely showcases the hard life of the working class in 1949: the only telephone is at the drug store and the apartments are cramped and dilapidated with no modern appliances. Paul Stewart, as Joe Kellerton, plays his villainous role with a cool, almost smug arrogance, while Bobby Driscoll, as Tommy, expertly handles the role of an innocent child drawn into the gritty ugliness of urban violence. The movie maintains a fast pace, with total suspense all the way to the nail-biting end, and every second of it is worth watching.