House by the River (DVD)

Exiled to Republic Pictures, Fritz Lang (Metropolis, Scarlet Street) created House by the River, a shocking and mordant low-budget thriller. Like fellow cinema giants Orson Welles and John Ford, Lang enjoyed a freedom at Republic that allowed him to make a truly unique and personal film. Regarding House by the River, Cahiers du Cinema declared, “Lang’s main erotic obsession is displayed more clearly than in any of his other films.” Victorian ne’er-do-well Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward, And Then There Were None) assaults and accidentally murders his wife’s virginal housekeeper. With the reluctant assistance of loyal brother John (Lee Bowman, Bataan), Stephen remorselessly consigns the girl’s corpse to the river. But as John’s affection for Stephen’s wife Marjorie (Jane Wyatt, Pitfall), police suspicion about the girl’s disappearance, and the depths of Stephen’s depravity all escalate, the river itself provokes a horrifying reunion between victim and murderer. Boasting an ingenious script by The Spiral Staircase scribe Mel Dinelli and evocative photography by seven-time Oscar® nominee Edward Cronjager (Heaven Can Wait), House by the River is a criminally underrated American film, both a work of art and a moral nightmare.