Just perfect...

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

"The Woman on the Beach" is a very frustrating film to watch. While it has a top director (Jean Renoir) and great actors, the sum total of all this is a confusing and less than satisfying picture...and one that is among Robert Ryan's worst films.When the picture begins, you learn that a Coast Guard officer, Scott (Ryan), has been suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. While the film is a bit vague about this (and I noticed one reviewer completely missed that he had PTSD), back in the day the disorder wasn't named like it was later. Regardless, he eventually is sent to a duty station in the middle of no where...and that's where he meets a pretty lady, Peggy (Joan Bennett) and her famous artist husband, Todd (Charles Bickford).Todd is blind...a real bummer since he's an artist. He's also famous and unable to work. Together, he an Peggy live a hellish life in isolation--both secretly resenting the other. Peggy apparently was responsible for his blindness and stays out of guilt. And Todd treats her like dirt. They are a very sick couple--and one of the interesting story elements in this confusing and strange film. Why Todd instantly likes Scott is a real enigma.So how does the Officer fit into all this? Well, it's obvious that he soon falls for Peggy but beyond that we have serious issues with the script. We NEVER have a sense that anything Scott does makes much sense and the PTSD part of the story introduced earlier disappears and has NOTHING to do with the rest of the film!! He also plays an incredibly weak character--something you'd never expect from Ryan, who was a terrific actor. Here, however, he is often contradictory and often stupid. His character simply makes little sense.Overall, this is a great example where all the best elements were brought into a movie with a lousy script. I suspect this film was written and re-written several times before it was filmed. Many aspects of the story are interesting but together they are a mish-mash of unrelated and confusing bits and pieces. Not at all satisfying to watch and often illogical (Bickford's character, for example, is harder to destroy than the Terminator!!). A major disappointment...I can see why Renoir soon returned to his native France given scripts like this one!By the way, if you know much about Renoir, this film is VERY interesting and ironic. His father was the super-famous artist, Pierre Auguste Renoir...a man who became increasingly blind as he aged and it impacted on his work tremendously.

This film aspires to so much more than it's able to deliver.Starting out ambitiously with a dream sequence and setting up a compelling love triangle, this film disintegrates by its extremely conventional and unlikely conclusion.The characterizations here are crude. Joan Bennett's character tolerates a husband who smacks her in the face -- then alternatingly says she hates him and initiates passionate kisses with him. Robert Ryan's lieutenant has an animal passion for this glamorous doormat yet seems turned off by concerns that she's a tramp and then bizarrely challenges her husband to a fight in an ocean-tossed fishing boat.This movie collapses under its ambitious latticework with a happy ending that seems slapped together as an afterthought.

It's amazing that Joan Bennett, Robert Ryan and Charles Bickford are able to hold interest in this muddled melodrama even though the script is far from believable, the situations are trite and the ending is unsatisfactory.The story plods along with occasional bursts of melodrama that seem forced and unreal because the script is so banal. Ryan is attracted to Bennett, whose blind husband (Bickford) seems to welcome him as a friend. She gradually falls in love with Ryan while distancing herself emotionally from Bickford with whom she has a love/hate/guilt relationship over being responsible for him losing his sight.Jean Renoir's direction with the players is uneven because none of the characters are sharply defined. Nevertheless, Ryan and Bennett do the best they can with characters not motivated properly and Bickford acquits himself well as the bitter artist whose works keep him living in the past.None of the elements make the story palatable or even believable. What a waste of time and talent.

Woman on the Beach, The (1947) *** (out of 4) This film features a very interesting story and there are a lot of great moments but at the same time there's a lot of silly and over the top moments and all of the blame has to go towards director Renoir. There's a very good love triangle going on here with a very well done mystery but for some reason Renoir lets the film slip into several over the top moments, which get a few laughs, which certainly wasn't the intent. One problem are the performances by Bennett and Ryan. Both fit their roles very nicely but each have scenes where their characters go so over the top that you've gotta wonder if Renoir was even watching what they were doing. There's also a scene near the end where it seems like Bennett was calling the shots on her own and doesn't know how to act in the scene, which turns out being rather confusing on her characters part. Bickford on the other hand delivers a very fierce and strong performance as the blind man with a temper. He clearly steals the show and acts circles around the other two leads. The film runs 71-minutes and goes by very fast and includes a couple very suspenseful scenes including one where the man wants to know if the husband is really blind and makes him walk on the edge of a cliff. Overall, the film kept me entertained but it's a shame this didn't turn out to be a masterpiece because all the pieces are there but just don't gel as well as they should.