House by the River (1950) User Reviews (58)

It's people who should be blamed for the filth, not the river.

[hitchcockthelegend · 8/10 · 7 March 2011]

House by the River is directed by Fritz Lang and adapted by Mel Dinelli from A.P. Herbert's novel The House on the River. It stars Louis Hayward, Jane Wyatt, Lee Bowman & Dorothy Patrick. Music is by George Antheil and photography by Edward J. Cronjager.

Novelist Stephen Byrne (Hayward) makes a play for the house maid and unwittingly kills her when she repels his advances. Enlisting the help of his disabled brother, John (Bowman), to dispose of the body in the river, Stephen suddenly finds that the publicity surrounding the maid's disappearance has put him in vogue again. In fact he finds his muse sufficiently stoked enough to craft another novel. But as easy as Stephen finds it easy to have no conscience, the opposite is the case with John, and with the river refusing to hold its secrets, something is going to give.

Working out of Republic pictures, Lang refused to let the low budget production hamper his vision of a bleak Cain & Abel like Gothic-noir-melodrama. He did, however, meet some resistance when requesting that the maid be played by a black woman, which was quickly shot down by nervous executives at the famed "B" movie studio. House by the River is far from being among the best of Lang's work, but the final product is still a triumph considering it's basically a three character piece set virtually in just two locations. It scores high on eerie atmosphere and finds Lang dealing in moral bankruptcy/responsibility and the eye for an eye mentality. Ushered into the narrative, too, is a Lang fave of people irked by loving someone they can't have. These themes allow the director to gloss over the simple script and dally in some truly arresting visuals.

Aided considerably by Cronjager's (Desert Fury/CanyonPassage) chiaroscuro photography, Lang's film is a lesson in how to maximise effect from limited sets. The actual house on the river, and that of the neighbour (resplendent with creepy scarecrow in garden), has a very disquiet feel to it, fronted by shimmering water that carries the dead carcass' of animals, it's a most haunting setting. And the eerie atmosphere continues inside the house, where shadows work their wonders and Antheil's music sticks rigidly (and rightly) to the creaky house formula. The cast don't pull up any trees, but they don't need to. Hayward is perhaps too animated for a study in snide villainy, but it works and he has a nice line in visual mocking. The rest fall in line for what is required, with the best of the bunch being Ann Shoemaker as nosey neighbour Mrs. Ambrose.

Once a hard to find film, House by the River is now easily accessible after gaining a DVD release (the print is fine, some age spotting and crackles, but completely watchable). It's a film that is easily recommended to Lang and Gothic house based movie purists. Driven by a despicable protagonist and cloaked in a creepy noirish vibe, it deserves to now gain a better and more appreciative audience. 7.5/10

The River Yields Its Secrets

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 12 October 2011]

The most interesting aspect of House By The River is the fact that it was produced at Republic Pictures, the home of Roy Rogers and several other B movie cowboys and the values those pictures put forth. Hardly the place for a moody and atmospheric thriller that examines a man's moral degeneracy directed by Fritz Lang who always likes to explore the dark. One thing that does mark this as a Republic film is the usual Herbert J. Yates economy.

But for a director like Lang who was used to exploring shadowy worlds, economy on the set isn't a hindrance, though back in Germany this man directed the opulent Metropolis. House By The River delivers the most for its meager budget.

Louis Hayward who was a poor man's Tyrone Power and like Power could play straight heroes and hero/heels gets his Nightmare Alley type role as the rich and idle writer who just can't move the writer's block. He takes a real fancy to maid Dorothy Patrick and when she repulses his advances, Hayward kills her. He gets older and club footed brother Lee Bowman to dump the body in the river. But as dead bodies will do, they bloat and have a nasty habit of floating to the top.

Lang and Hayward create a really frightening picture of moral degeneracy that would have resonated well with post World War II audiences who had just defeated a nation gripped in the philosophy that it was a race of super people. Jane Wyatt gets her innings in playing Hayward's wife who Bowman also loved and who starts thinking that maybe she married the wrong brother.

I have to single out Jody Gilbert from the cast who plays Bowman's housekeeper and who Bowman takes his frustrations out on after he's helped Hayward. She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and misreads all of Bowman's signals and later does him damage at a coroner's inquest.

I'm not sure how much money House By The River brought in to Republic Pictures, but it is a minor masterpiece for this studio.

"(Death On) The River"

[Spondonman · 8/10 · 11 November 2007]

House By The River was a simple tale masterfully brought to the screen by Fritz Lang in his best conventional yet classy style. It was shot on a shoestring budget for Republic but a brooding atmosphere was captured beautifully by intelligent production and marvellous period sets on sharp nitrate film stock. Even the studio shot scenes of the garden with long shots of the bricky houses are fascinating to sink into.

Louis Haywood plays a budding writer with pretensions to Art and dubious morals who accidentally murders his lowly servant girl and drags his weaker brother into the mess to help him out. The story is simply played out to the bitter end, and although I wish the police angle could have been given more prominence it's completely logical. The part the River plays isn't as large as the House, but it's a darkly inspired mix; I've always wondered what colour the wallpaper was. Haywood often played ambivalent characters, however there's no ambivalence here in his portrayal of Stephen Byrne – he's an evil swine all right. When it's all done you should be left with admiration for a director who could make a little go such a long way, with the help of a great team and cast of course!

It deserves more attention than it gets – maybe the simple descriptive title didn't help it win immortality, otoh a more eye-catching "Strangled In The Dark" wouldn't have been as good either! This is one of those little films to treasure and something to revel in at the cinema or late at night on TV with the lights off for maximum effect.

Lang's hidden masterpiece

[clore_2 · 17 November 2006]

For some reason, the great director chose to degrade this film on some occasions, yet at other times he would revel in details of the film's opening quarter-hour. However, at the time that he made this film, he was despondent over the collapse of his Diana Productions which was a co-venture with Joan Bennett and her husband Walter Wanger. With no offers in sight from the majors, Lang chose to visit "Poverty Row" which may have left him with bad memories of a film of which he should have been more pleased.

In HOUSE BY THE RIVER, we have Lang working at the bargain basement Republic Pictures, where Orson Welles had just made a similar descent to make MACBETH. In each case, the decline was only in budget, not in quality. In Lang's case, we have a film that plays as a great companion piece to his SECRET BEHIND THE DOOR, both being a change of pace Gothic thriller from the master of spies and noir.

Incidentally, the promise of artistic freedom offered at Republic did stop when Lang attempted to cast a black actress as the maid. We're just lucky that Vera Hruba Ralston (wife of company head Yates) wasn't cast as the wife.

The screenwriter, Mel Dinelli, working from the A.P. Herbert novel, was a past and future hand at these "house" mellers - he previously did the screenplay for THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE and would do BEWARE, MY LOVELY in 1952. He segued well from Robert Siodmak to Fritz Lang as long-time Langian themes such as conscience and fate are in evidence here. Oddly, it is not the lead who suffers a conscience. Hayward's Stephen Byrne, a hack writer who has been lusting for the new maid played by Dorothy Patrick, revels in his self-promoted celebrity now that she's "disappeared." She's actually been accidentally murdered by Stephen, who had been filled with lustful thoughts as the maid bathed and seems to have a near orgasm as he hears the bathwater go down the drain outside the house - the look on Hayward's face is priceless.

It's his brother John who aided him in hiding the body (and who is referred to as having gotten his brother out of other scrapes) who turns to drink to quell his conscience and who is the primary suspect in the inquest. Little does he know that his brother is subtly implicating him in the crime in toto. His fate would be that no good deed (siblingly speaking) goes unpunished. The brother is played by Lee Bowman, and it's the only role of his in which I can say he's memorable. That's not to say that otherwise he's a forgettable player, just that he's not distinguishable from a bunch of mustachioed players who came out while the head ranks were off to war and who quickly had to retreat once they returned.

Hayward is so enjoying his celebrity that he's signing books by day and wife Jane Wyatt refers to him being out all night and smelling of cheap perfume when he comes home. She's beginning to realize that Lee Bowman's John Byrne is the better of the brothers, although the story implies that she was his own unrequited love.

But as unsympathetic as Stephen Byrne may be, before an audience ever rooted for Robert Walker trying to retrieve his lighter in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, we share Stephen's fears of the body doing some synchronized swimming with the deer. While attempting to retrieve it, he only makes it worse for himself by accidentally (he can't do much right it seems) opening the top of the sack and letting out some flowing blond hair to make it even more obvious. When Stephen later finds that his brother's monogram is on the sack, he breaks into a devilish smile of contentment.

Cinematographer Edward Cronjager works well with Lang on their second pairing (the previous one was the gorgeous Technicolor WESTERN UNION). When the body (in a sack) starts popping up in the river, we recall the image of a floating deceased deer from earlier in the film and a character's claim that it shows up at about the same time every day given the tide.

If the ending seems rushed, it's only a reflection of the lead character's madness (a quick snap), unlike the state of mind of Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson) at the ending of SCARLET STREET which is more detailed. It could have been a bit tidier, but maybe the head man cut the budget and schedule short. It was known to happen at Republic.

nasty little piece of suspense work

[funkyfry · 7/10 · 27 October 2008]

This little known Fritz Lang film from the early 50s features stark and morbid set pieces that you won't soon forget, such as a dead cow and later a dead woman in a sack floating endlessly with the tides of the river. The gossipy neighbor woman (Ann Shoemaker) provides some dark humor by constantly needling our "hero" (the weaselly Louis Hayward) about calling the cops to clean up the mess in the river. The upstanding characters in the movie are Stephen's (Hayward) wife Marjorie (Jane Wyatt) and his accountant brother John (Lee Bowman). John has a limp which makes him something of a social outcast, but even the friends that he has start to abandon him when he's heavily suspected of murdering Stephen's servant girl Emily (Dorothy Patrick). He seems to be willing to sacrifice his own place in the community even though his brother lied to him about having a pregnant wife to motivate him to help in the cover-up. The most obvious reason turns out to be true -- he's not committed to saving his brother but rather to an unspoken love for Marjorie, which Stephen crassly exploits.

As you can tell, the story is a bit contrived and mainly of interest in the ways it makes Stephen's character so utterly despicable even though he's the central focus of the movie. Lang himself brings some great style to the film through neat photographic effects. It isn't one of his greater films, but it also doesn't quite deserve the neglect it's suffered over the years even from his fans. It is a nasty but gorgeous little exercise in atmosphere and characterization that all Frtiz Lang fans should seek out.

A dank and brooding Gothic from Fritz Lang

[bmacv · 7/10 · 5 November 2001]

House by the River is something of an anomaly; it's more of an old-dark-house Gothic than the grittier dramas, from Fury to Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, which Fritz Lang made in his American period. (The location of this house is a worrisome and amateurism anomaly, too; the conventions, milieu and some of the accents suggests that it's an English country estate, but much else argues that the film takes place in the U.S.) Would-be writer Louis Hayward, getting flirtatious with the maid in the absence of his wife (Jane Wyatt), accidently strangles her when she resists his advances. His brother (Lee Bowman) reluctantly agrees to cover up for him and help sink the body in the sinister, ever-present river that runs by the edge of the property; the resulting scandal of the disappeared servant bolsters the writer's flagging career. When suspicion begans to gather around his innocent brother, Hayward, by now seriously demented, couldn't be more pleased. But then Wyatt comes across a hidden manuscript; Hayward (you see), flushed by his phoney success, resolves to write "what he knows...."

Edward Cronjager's heavily shaded cinematography and Georges Anthiel's brooding score help fill out Lang's dark, clammy vision, making the river -- forever disgorging its flotsam and jetsam -- a principal character in the action. House by the River is a good old-fashioned thriller, particularly in its Gothic closing scenes, but it's not in a class with Lang's films at the top of his American form, like Scarlet Street, The Big Heat or Human Desire.

Flood brothers

[Lejink · 7/10 · 10 June 2017]

Reduced to making pictures with Republic with a limited budget and B-list actors didn't stop Fritz Lang producing this dark turn-of-the-century thriller. In Louis Hayward's Stephen Byrne, an aspiring writer with a devoted wife and faithful brother, Lang creates a memorably dastardly villain. When he makes a spurned pass at the household's pretty new maid as she descends the stairs in a dressing gown showing, for the time, a daring amount of bare leg, he unthinkingly strangles her and involves his over-loyal brother in covering up his tracks.

However, the river where they dump the body has a habit of returning abandoned items from whence they came and it's not too long before the sack containing the dead girl's body drifts back into view and a spiralling sequence of events ensue including a murder trial, accusations of an affair between wife and brother-in-law, two more attempted murders and a dramatic death-scene just before the final curtain.

I noticed Republic's supposedly cheap background sets less than usual, a tribute to Lang and his crew's imaginative use of the established noir elements of dark, expressionistic shadows, tracking shots and using framing devices, such as doors, (very apt, considering Stephen's setting up of his brother for murder).

I was impressed by the acting of the three lead players, Louis Hayward, in particular is superb as the borderline psychopath Stephen, a threatening leer never far from his face while Jane Wyatt is also very good as the loving wife whose eyes gradually open to her husband's true nature and Lee Bowman is redoubtable as the limping brother who puts sibling duty before adherence to the law.

Most of all though it's Lang's mean and moody direction which gradually brings the whole affair to the boil, even if the final haunting of Stephen before his demise seems to have wandered in from grand opera.

Nevertheless this fine little film noir is another notable entry in director Lang's distinguished list of works.

One of the Most Despicable Characters I Have Ever Seen

[claudio_carvalho · 9/10 · 10 January 2007]

The unsuccessful writer Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward) tries to force his servant Emily Gaunt (Dorothy Patrick) sexually while his wife Marjorie Byrne (Jane Wyatt) is visiting a friend and accidentally strangles her. His crippled brother John Byrne (Lee Bowman) coincidently comes to his house in that moment, and Stephen asks him to help to get rid of the corpse and avoid an scandal, since his wife would be pregnant. The naive and good John helps his brother to dump the body in the river nearby his house. Stephen uses the disappearance of Emily to blame her and promote his book. When the body is found by the police, all the evidences points to John, and he becomes the prime suspect of the murder.

"House by the River" is a dark and tense movie with one of the most despicable characters I have ever seen. Louis Hayward is perfect in the role of a scum, capable of killing, defaming, lying, falsely accusing, and maintaining cold blood. Jane Wyatt and Lee Bowman complete the efficient trio of lead cast. Fritz Lang uses with mastery the shadows and lights in the black and white cinematography as usual. The story is very tense, but the conclusion is very abrupt and quite conventional, moralist and commercial. In my opinion, this excellent film deserved a darker and amoral ending to become another masterpiece of this outstanding director. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Maldição" ("Curse")

Great Film, Though Not Lang's Best Work

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 27 December 2012]

A deranged writer (Louis Hayward) murders a maid (Dorothy Patrick) after she resists his advances. The writer engages his brother (Lee Bowman) to help in hiding the body...

Richard Brody wrote, "Every detail of the film, from its opening shots of the nearby river and the wind in the trees, has moral resonance. Stephen promises to change, but from the moment that he listens lasciviously to Emily's bathwater sluicing down a drainpipe his bad end is already foretold —- and the elements of nature, the wind and the water, are the ultimate agents of his doom."

How can I argue with such a poetic interpretation of this film? Whether intended by Lang to be so symbolic or not, Brody nails it and gives the film a new lease on life. While this may not be Fritz Lang's best work, or even his best noir, it is a fine piece of cinema with all sorts of moral ambiguity that deserves recognition.

I watched the film on Netflix. It was not completely restored and the picture was full-screen. Perhaps a better version exists out there or could be made?

The Sociopath and the River

[movingpicturegal · 8/10 · 29 March 2006]

Intense period thriller about a writer, Stephen Byrne (played by Louis Hayward), who lives in - yeah, you guessed it - a house by the river; with lovely yard and gazebo, yet oddly dark as the film opens with the sky clouded, shadows cast across scenery, haunting music, a dead animal floating by on the glistening water, and a black widow spider crawling over his writing. We meet the attractive, blonde servant girl, Emily, who Stephen clearly has a lustful eye on from the get-go. By the next scene, he tries to kiss her coming down the stairs after bathing in his tub, and, well, she screams and he "accidentally" strangles her. With his brother assisting him, they put her body in a big sack and sink her in the river, then follows the cover-up of the murder.

Well, this film is quite interesting, dark and suspenseful - there's a lot going on here. The print I saw looked strikingly full of sharp black and white contrast. The photography in this makes the film menacing with blackened rooms lit only by candle light casting dark, sharp shadows across the walls, some extreme camera angles up stairs and down halls, shots of faces seen only in mirrors, extreme close-ups, and sweat dripping on the face of a nervous murderer.

Underrated Noir - House by the River

[arthur_tafero · 7/10 · 15 September 2021]

The star of this film is not an actor or actress; although the troupe does a very good job of turn of the century day to day life. No, the star of this film is Fritz Lang, the master of suspense before Hitchcock became known as such later in American cinema. Lang's M is a masterpiece not even equalled by Hitchcock. This piece is not quite as well done, but certainly better than the vast majoirty of noir pieces of the golden age. Lang was forced to do this fine piece of work for Republic Pictures; a bottom of the barrel studio, while Hitchcock had the full resources of. Selznik Studios in the US. Treat yourself to this film.

"There's a limit to this business of being brothers."

[Handlinghandel · 8/10 · 31 December 2005]

Louis Hayward utters this chilling line. His brother, Lee Bowman, has a physical disability. He has always been loyal to Hayward. But Hayward is looking out for number one -- big time.

I had seen a terrible print of this movie once years ago and figured it to be lesser Fritz Lang. Not so! It is certainly one of the very best of his American movies. It's beautifully filmed, extremely well plotted, and cast superbly.

It is, in summary, a terrifying movie.

The Hayward character is responsible for a killing very early in the plot. He had not intended it, though his motives were not very high in the circumstance causing it. He doesn't care whom he drags down to keep his name clear and finish the book he is writing about the crime.

In addition to excellent performances by Hayward, Bowman, and Jane Wyatt as Hayward's wife, the supporting cast is a dream: Plump Jody Gilbert is pathetic and hateful simultaneously as Bowman's maid. Ann Shoemaker gives a touch of comic relief -- but just a touch -- as a nosy neighbor of Hayward and Wyatt.

Like the best of Lang -- "The Big Heat," "Fury," "M," "Metropolis," and the Mabuse films -- this concerns morality and its lack. There is a Biblical feel to it, as evidenced in the quote from Hayward (Cain) regarding his fine brother Abel/Bowman.

It could scarcely be better than it is.

Bleak and foreboding suspense thriller from Fritz Lang

[The_Void · 7/10 · 13 July 2006]

Fritz Lang made a lot of great films over his career, mostly in his native Germany; but he certainly made a lot of worthwhile films in the USA, and House by the River is definitely one of them! This thriller revels in its lush Gothic atmosphere, and this is brilliantly complimented by the dark themes of the story and a strong overture courtesy of George Antheil. The film takes place, as you would expect, in a house by a river. Director Fritz Lang makes excellent use of both of these central locations, as the house always looks dark and foreboding; while the river is deep and dark, and provides an excellent setting for a macabre story of murder. The plot focuses on two brothers, one of which is an unsuccessful writer that lives with his wife and two maids. After making advances towards the younger and more attractive maid and being turned down, our main protagonist finds himself in a predicament when she dies in his arms. He then recruits his brother to help him rid himself of the body in the nearby lake, and the publicity of the disappearance gives him a welcome boost to his writing career...

This film has been thrown in with the film noir movement that took place in the forties and fifties; but if you ask me, it's not really a part of it. The film does feature dashes of mystery, common of film noir - but the focus is really on the suspense, dark plot and settings, thus making it more of a straight thriller. The story itself is strong and works because of its well defined characters. The ensemble cast is good overall, with Louis Hayward impressing in the lead role and receiving good feedback from Lee Bowman and Jane Wyatt in support. The main reason why the film works so well is clearly down to the atmosphere, and the director always ensures that the film takes place in absolute darkness, which helps the macabre plot no end. Lang uses props such as dead animals and hallucination to maximum effect, and all help to make the film what it is. The House by the River boils down to a suitable dreary climax, which bodes well and gives credence to everything that has gone before it. Overall, this is a lovely little movie and undoubtedly one of the best that Lang made in America. Highly recommended!

Gloom & Doom Looms Within A Shadow-Filled Room

[strong-122-478885 · 4/10 · 10 November 2013]

*Possible Spoilers Ahead!*

To be completely frank here, I honestly didn't much like House By The River's bleak, over-wrought tale of woe. I found that it took itself way-way too seriously and carried the level of its melodramatics to the point of being downright laughable at times.

This business of over-doing it really came to a head in this film's last half-hour.

I mean, c'mon. The characters in the story pushed the plausibility of their actions just a bit too far for me to take them at face value.

OK. I will gladly admit that regardless of "House" being a poverty-row production from Republic Studios, director Fritz Lang certainly did manage to milk the moody eeriness of its Gothic setting to the fullest extent possible. And, yes, that did serve as quite an effective distraction.

But, after all was said and done, it sure seemed to me that all that there was left lurking beneath the ominous-looking shadows and the foreboding ambiance was just the barest bones of a decidedly confused and poorly thought-out story.

By the end of the picture I was left feeling quite dissatisfied and misled by "House's" story which told a rather screwy tale of a quirky, second-rate novelist whose pent-up neurosis finally rears its ugly, little head.

In a number of ways "House's" story about madness and inevitable murder reminded me a lot of Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" (with its obvious differences well noted, of course).

These memories come back to haunt me,they haunt me like a curse (B.S.).

[dbdumonteil · 14 November 2002]

This obscure Fritz Lang movie came just before his "secret beyond the door" ,a great movie dealing with psychoanalysis ,and his undistinguished "American guerrilla in the Philippines".This is a movie that deserves to be known.THe stars are the house and the river,hence the title. The house is dark and mysterious ,and the first sequences are almost silent as the writer spies the maid who has a bath then puts on one of his wife's dresses.It looks as if Lang is returning for a short while to the silent era of expressionism. The river has a strange presence ; it is an enemy itself:the scenes which show the hero trying to catch the dead body are impressive.There's a strange transfer of culpability from the murderer to his brother.

Basically a detective movie,"house by the river" is close to the fantastic genre too.The murderer seems to be obsessed with the feeling that his victims may not be dead and he "sees them rise from the dead" (his wife whom he mistakes for the dead servant,his brother who returns from the river).His death is supernatural,eerie.

Lang's minor works are better than a lot of directors' best ones.

See Emily Stray

[kalbimassey · 7/10 · 3 December 2020]

The unsightly spectre of a dead cow floating along the river is not quite the view you would choose to have from your home, especially when, with frequently turning tides, the decaying beast seems intent on making more comebacks than Frank Sinatra.

In the absence of wife Jane Wyatt, author with the roving eye, Louis Hayward makes unwelcome advances towards recently appointed and very beautiful maid Emily (Dorothy Patrick). Phased by her hysterical response and distracted by the probability of being overheard, upon finally releasing his grip from around her neck, he discovers...that she is dead.

Engaging the reluctant assistance of partially disabled brother (Lee Bowman), Emily's body is bundled into a wood sack and under cover of night, dumped into the river. Despite being firmly anchored down, one suspects that we have not seen the last of Emily. Indeed, it's not the red red robin that's likely to come bob bob bobbing along the water any time soon and a further case of Floating Carcass Syndrome seems imminent. When Hayward shows discomfort at the sight of a jumping silver fish caught fleetingly in the moonlight, one senses the presence of a bad omen.

A low budget entry from Republic Pictures, House by the River is a generally enthralling period (c1900) gothic noir, which bears a certain comparison with Gaslight. Only during the talky courtroom scene does interest wane slightly. With glasses consisting of one plain and one tinted lens, is the judge attempting to make a fashion statement? If so, any fragment of street cred is extinguished by his comb over hair do!

Featuring a cast comprising largely of tier two Hollywood performers, including Bowman, who incurs the wrath of housekeeper, Jody Gilbert by refusing to consume a substantial meal with his drink.

An often overlooked minor gem in Fritz Lang's output, with some atmospheric twilight and night shots of the river contributing effectively to the generally haunting nature of the film. House by the River is definitely worth viewing.

Illogical

[Philipp_Flersheim · 7/10 · 26 September 2022]

Failing novelist Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward) murders his maid and manipulates his brother John (Lee Bowman) into helping him dispose of the body. Later, after it has been found, he sees a chance to pin the crime on John, whom he eventually tries to kill, too (making it look like suicide). 'House by the River' is suffering from one essential downside: The plot is illogical. While Stephen does everything to let suspicion fall on his brother, he is at the same time working on a new novel (following the advice of a neighbour to focus on things he knows) about a murder - a novel that is as good as an admission of guilt. And if he puts all this into that novel, which after all he intends to publish, why is he so desparate to prevent his wife Marjory (Jane Wyatt) from reading the manuscript? Despite all this, I am rating 'House by the River' 7 stars. That is because it is well-acted and beautifully photographed. Especially the eerie scenes on the river (with its murky and brackish water) are great. In sum, this is by no means one of Fritz Lang's best films, far from it. But it has some important points in its favour.

For one young maiden, this will be a river of no return.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 13 May 2013]

You don't have much time to even put your hand into your popcorn when all of a sudden, murder pops up. It's all sudden, out of nowhere, an obvious accident, yet cruelly hidden. Louis Hayward strangles the maid he's anxious to bed while simply trying to keep her quiet so a nosy neighbor passing by won't hear her screams. Then, when he realizes what he's done, he's using his crippled brother (Lee Bowman) to help him get rid of the corpse simply by flinging the poor maiden into the river which is conveniently located outside Hayward's back door. But no bad deed goes unpunished, the girl's absence does not go unnoticed, and as you had already seen in those low-budget Tod Slaughter British horror movies of the late 30's and early 40's, the corpse comes home. Will the suspicious wife (Jane Wyatt) be the next to pay or will a little ghostly visit by the deceased make the piper be paid?

Like the house in "Rebecca", the moors in "Wuthering Heights" and the land in "Gone With the Wind", the river acts like a character, one without dialog, but definitely living and breathing, watching the evil occurring with baited breath and waiting for the right time to strike. The funny thing is that all along, you really begin to think that the villain actually might get away with it, and it is brilliant fun to watch everything fall into place. Fritz Lang, another "master of suspense", keeps every moment gripping, and after misfiring with his "Secret Beyond the Door", scores with his "House By the River".

The supporting cast has some great moments, particularly Anne Shoemaker as the pesky next door neighbor who shows up at the most inauspicious times to annoy Hayward, and Jody Gilbert (in probably her biggest part) as the maid. I began to notice this portly character actress only recently in so many films I've seen many times before, and unlike other character actors of the time, she seems like people you may have known in your neighborhood as a child or encountered at work. (Other character actors usually seem so much larger than life or have a look that is far too unique to be common.) In fact, the day I watched this movie, Ms. Gilbert popped up in another film I had just seen ("Are You With It?"), not surprising in the fact that she appeared in over 100 films and TV shows. Dorothy Patrick, as the poor maid dispatched by Hayward, reminded me of Angela Lansbury in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" with her pathetic creature one of those frail maidens you can tell from the very beginning who was destined to be exploited, used, and tossed aside. This is the type of film to watch in total darkness for the full effect.

great Fritz Lang film

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 26 September 2010]

Louis Hayward, Jane Wyatt, and Lee Bowman star in "House by the River," a 1950 film directed by Fritz Lang. According to the interview on the DVD, this film for some reason was "lost" and later located.

The film is a Gothic drama. Hayward plays Stephen Byrne, a snake and an unsuccessful writer. One day, while his wife (Wyatt) is out of the house, Stephen makes a pretty aggressive pass at the family maid, Emily (Dorothy Patrick). When she starts screaming, Stephen winds up killing her. Panicked, he begs his crippled brother John (Lee Bowman) to help him get rid of the body. John is sick of baling out his brother, but does so because Stephen lies to him, stating that his wife is at the doctor's because she's pregnant. John reluctantly helps. Emily's disappearance causes a lot of publicity, which helps the sale of Stephen's books and inspires him to write one about her death as his marriage deteriorates. Meanwhile, suspicion falls in the wrong quarters.

This is an excellent film by Lang, with some of the action taking place in the dark, narrow house and on the river, which has become a tremendous threat to both Stephen and John. At times it's downright creepy.

This film was made by Republic, and this isn't what one would call an A list cast or budget, yet under Lang's direction, it's an A film. All three of the stars would enjoy solid careers in television, as would many of the supporting players.

Louis Hayward's career was a strange thing. Handsome, smooth, with a caressing voice, he made a wonderful Simon Templar in "The Saint in New York" and appeared in several top films, including "The Count of Monte Cristo," "And Then There Were None," and "Anthony Adverse." It seemed like all systems go. But mega-stardom was not to be; the majority of his films were weak entries. He became wealthy acting and producing on television. Hayward is excellent here, embodying the cold opportunistic and amoral Stephen. Lee Bowman is very good as John, doing some of his best work. And Jane Wyatt, who would become known to baby boomers as Margaret Anderson on "Father Knows Best" is lovely as Stephen's unhappy wife.

A must see if you like Lang.

Tell a Racy Story, it's what the people want

[davidmvining · 7/10 · 16 September 2022]

This feels like a more successful attempt at what I think Fritz Lang was trying to accomplish with Secret Beyond the Door, a gothic tale of murder. Where the previous film descended into rank Freudian silliness, the psychological elements of House by the River are left a bit more beneath the surface, working more in line with traditional thriller structure and conventions. That means that this film doesn't break any thriller mold, but it does operate more comfortably and reasonably in the familiar space while giving Lang room to explore shadows and composition, as was his wont.

This movie feels like it's missing an opening ten minute long or so scene to more fully establish characters and setting. It almost feels like we got dropped into the second scene of the film. Still, we meet Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward), a minor novelist of little renown, left alone at his home by the river with only his nosy neighbor Mrs. Ambrose (Ann Shoemaker) and his new maid Emily (Dorothy Patrick) to keep him company. After Emily bathes and puts on some of her mistress's perfume, Stephen, frustrated by his novelistic troubles, comes onto Emily very hard to the point that she starts screaming. He tries to hush her up. His hands end up around her throat, and she dies. Stephen's brother John (Lee Bowman) shows up, and Stephen manages to guilt John into helping him hide the body in the river. By the time his wife Marjorie (Jane Wyatt) shows up, all seems well in the house.

Stephen becomes steadily unhinged as time goes on, obviously wanting to feel secure in his getting away with the crime while also having fear that a noose is tightening around his neck. However, a certain meta-element gets introduced here that gives him drive. At a book signing Stephen organizes to capitalize on his proximity to everything, one of the nice ladies offers him the old advice of writing what he knows. He's going to write about the murder of Emily. As the investigation continues, with moments that both ease Stephen's worry and compound it depending on the circumstances, he writes away, using his position as employer of the girl to help advance his fame and career. Stephen is a complete psychopath.

In contrast is John, his brother. John's first moment in the film is odd, with him walking in the back door of the house right after the crime and Stephen announcing his name like we already know who he is (this is the core of my idea that there's a missing opening to help introduce characters a bit more, the other part being that Marjorie doesn't appear for at least the first 20 minutes), but he ends up being the moral center of the story. He's a good man, an accountant who gave up a large portion of his portion of their parents inheritance and offered it up to Stephen to help him establish himself in a way conducive to his writing. He's hard working and honest, and getting entangled in Stephen's web of lies puts him in an untenable position where he can't do anything to get out that is remotely right in his own eyes. On the one hand, he would have to give up his brother, the brother he had already sacrificed so much for, and on the other, he was actually an accessory after the fact. This moral quandary, along with some damning circumstantial evidence, puts him in the crosshairs of the authorities, much to the delight of his younger brother.

In more than one way, House by the River reminds me of yet another Alfred Hitchcock film, Under Capricorn. I have very kind feelings towards it, but it was definitely not kindly received contemporaneously (or even now by the rest of the filmgoing world). Released in 1949, the year before House by the River, it also dealt with a Victorian era mystery involving murder. I find it hard to believe that the studio would have pushed for a Victorian era gothic mystery to take advantage of the lack of success of Hitchcock's film, but it seems obvious to me that Lang was watching Hitchcock's career closely, especially through the 40s. One way that the two remind me of each other is that they're both billed as thrillers, but they also both function more fully as dramas. Under Capricorn is more melodramatic in nature while House by the River leans more luridly thrillerish. I think that's why I like Hitchcock's film more, it more fully embraces the conventions of traditional drama while peppering its ending with thriller elements, but House by the River is no slouch when it comes to the drama. That is highlighted in the characterization of the brothers.

Stephen is well drawn as a complete psychopath, hiding it through his writing and the civility of nice manners, but John is consumed by guilt and loyalty at war with each other. They're both well-written, and in between them is Marjorie who grows to detest her husband and find true affection for her brother-in-law. None of it is hitting the strongest of emotional chords, but it works well enough. And, much like Scarlet Street feeling like a drama culminating in its own thread of horror, this does its own part in crescendoing into the conventions of gothic thriller territory. It works. It just doesn't elicit deep emotions as it gets there.

So, it's a fine thriller, something of a minor return to form after the less than successful Cloak and Dagger and Secret Beyond the Door. It's Lang using his camera to tell a racy story (as Mrs. Ambrose describes the tastes of the masses that Stephen should be appealing to in his novels) to entertain and nothing more. In that, he succeeds.

Good!

[RodrigAndrisan · 10/10 · 19 September 2021]

The great Fritz Lang working with actors which are not big names, are not first-rate stars. But the result is exceptional, all the actors are very good, the story is interesting and the direction is top notch.

House by the River

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 27 December 2022]

Louis Hayward ("Stephen Byrne") over-eggs his part a bit here as a writer whose career has long since started to wain. When he accidentally throttles the maid whilst she resists his unwanted advances; he recruits his invalid brother "John" (Lee Bowman) to help him dispose of the body. The subsequent investigation into her disappearance leads to renewed interest from the public in his work and he relishes being back in the spotlight. As easily as he continues on regardless of his crime, his brother starts to struggle with the guilt of his involvement - all to protect Hayward's neglected - but pregnant wife (Jane Wyatt). When the body is discovered with the evidence pointing to the brother a trial ensues... Fritz Lang has managed to take this low budget effort and inject it with tension and a stabbing sense of the way in which ambition and selfishness can over-ride any other obligation to anything or anyone else. The magnificently eerie photography; George Antheil's climactic score and use of shadow - and the wind, as well as a very tight script makes this a compelling murder mystery with much more depth to the characters of the two men than we might expect from anything from Republic Pictures!

"Emily..."

[broadway_melody_girl · 10/10 · 25 July 2009]

...is one of the creepiest lines I have heard from a movie. That single name, uttered snidely in the dark by Louis Hayward will make your skin crawl.

I've seen House by the River at least 6 times. I don't know why I like it so much. It's a wonderfully well-done film but it creeps the heck out of me every time I watch it. Louis Hayward in the performance of his life plays a psychopathic wastrel of a writer in the late 1800's who tries to rape the housemaid while his wife is away, but accidentally strangles her. He cons his brother into helping him get rid of the body. He gets inspiration from this for a book, and his book is a success. But when certain people get in the way of his success, he turns the whole thing around in the most diabolical way possible.

Out of all Fritz Lang's sound films, yes, even M, House by the River is my favorite. The Gothic atmosphere is so intense... the photography, the music, and acting all fit together perfectly. It might not be Lang's best American film but I think it's one of his most unique.

Wouldn't it be great if you could actually pick your siblings?

[nomoons11 · 7/10 · 9 October 2011]

Wow this guy was one bottom feeder of a brother. A semi-semi-talented wanna be writer decides he wants to have a little kiss from the maid and his true nature comes out. He kills her accidentally but he realizes that...he doesn't care.

After this (and this is just the beginning) he decides to shove the blame over to his brother. Of course his brother has done nuthin' except help him his whole life. This is a seriously useless individual. After the killing he realizes what he can get away with and decides that his writing needs "reality" to be any good. Meaning he has to actually live the stories for them to sell. So he lies against his brother, tries to kill him and whilst doing this he's writing a new book called...."The River".

The performances are pretty good. The lead look scarily similar to a young thin Orson Welles. I had to look twice to make sure it wasn't him. He over does it a bit but the others, like his brother and wife, play their parts with a steady hand.

This one has a Gothic typa feel to it. All in all a fairly decent film...just make sure you don't watch it with a sibling that doesn't like you :D

Very interesting... at first

[mrdonleone · 5/10 · 19 October 2019]

It starts out very exciting; then unfortunately turns into one of those film noirs we've often seen quite too much of. Great promises, low fulfilment of these expectations. True to life, sure; but hey, I still want to be amused when I watch a movie.