Secret Beyond the Door (1948) - film review

Whilst holidaying in Mexico, Celia, a beautiful young heiress, meets and falls in love with Mark Lamphere, the owner of a journal on architecture.   Although she knows virtually nothing about Mark’s past, Celia decides to marry him.  She soon realises that something is wrong.  Mark has a son by a previous, doomed marriage, and also has a morbid fascination for murder.  What intrigues Celia most is a locked door in her husband’s mansion, a door to a room she must never see…

Secret Beyond the Door is one of Fritz Lang’s better American films – chillingly atmospheric and beautifully shot in the style of the classic film noir directors of the period.  It’s very nearly a return to Lang’s earlier fantasy horror films of the 1920s and 1930s, with Freudian references, long shadows and a lurking sense of menace.  There’s even a sequence where Lang cleverly uses his former expressionistic style to convey the mental derangement of the film’s principal male character.  Unfortunately, whilst the film is stylistically brilliant, some stilted dialogue and slightly wooden acting weaken its impact, and the narrative relies too heavily on tedious psychobabble for the ending to be either convincing or satisfying.  These deficiencies aside, it’s still possible to appreciate this film for its artistic merits and also to take some pleasure in the teasing Hitchcockian-style suspense.

© James Travers 2006

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