Review of Secret Beyond the Door (1947) by Jonas Å — 05 Jun 2011

There some great things about this film, and some not so great. Lang does a pretty good job of building suspense, although cheaply through the use of overly dramatic music and a ridiculous amount of smoke. Joan Bennett has a fabulous voice that is used to good effect here. There are quite a few lines that were supposed to be profound when the film was released, but are now just silly and a tad stupid.

The biggest problem with this film is the explanation of why Mark wants to kill Celia. She reminds him of a childhood trauma that his mother inflicted on him, which was, wait for it...she locked him in his bedroom when he was ten for a few hours, which clearly means he has harboured feeling of deep loathing for his mother ever since. Turns out it wasn't even his mother who locked him in, but his sister. This whole explanation as well as the thinly veiled hits dropped by the psychoanalyst during a tour of the murder rooms makes it so unbelievably implausible that the fairly strong opening is undermined.