That was an excellent one.

Sorry, this movie sucks

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Tommy Woodry is a young boy living in a poor tenement in NYC. He often makes up stories. His parents are frustrated with him. On one hot night, he goes out to sleep on the fire escape. While outside the upstairs apartment, he witnesses the Kellersons stabbing a man in the back with a pair of scissors. He tries to tell his parents but they don't believe him. He tells a police detective but he finds nothing. Tommy is forced to apologize by his mother to Mrs. Kellerson which only informs them of him as a witness.There is always great tension of a kid who nobody believes. This one takes the 'The Boy who Cried Wolf' fable and turns it into a tense noir. The little boy is pretty good in terms of a child actor. There are a couple of less believable things like the taxi driver. There must have been an impenetrable partition in that cab. Despite the little flaws, this is a solid thriller.

This film is a thriller revolving around the accusations of a boy with a vivid imagination. Tommy witnesses a murder, but no one will believe him because he has a reputation for exaggeration and story telling.Filmed in black and white, The Window does a good job of creating tension as the killers are spooked into taking action against Tommy, played by 9-year-old Bobby Driscoll. The credibility of the film depends on his performance and he does not disappoint. This film is not up to the standards of Hitchcock, but it is not far off. Fortunately, the filmmakers did not try to ratchet up the suspense by asking Bobby to emote more. Instead, they allow him to convey his fears by having him deal with the darkness and shadows of the sets. This feels more believable.The adult actors all portray their characters well. Again, there is no over-acting here. The director does not have them express emotions beyond what normal parents would feel about a child who is lying, or beyond what the killers would feel if threatened by a youngster.Though The Window is worth seeing, for better tales of unbelieved witnesses, see The Bedroom Window or the classic Rear Window.

The Window (1949)A totally classic film noir, fairly low budget, and unique for having a child at the middle of the story. The darkness of the mood and darkness of the filming combine to counterpoint the apparent cheer of this boy in New York City, creating something just short of a masterpiece. Perfect? I wish! But the best of it will blow your noir mind.The whole adventure here happens in an apartment building, one of those brick 5-story walk-ups with fire escapes on the outside. A boy, sleeping on the escape because of the heat, witnesses a murder. He tells his parents, who don't believe him (the movie opens with a summation of the Boy Who Cried Wolf). But of course, the murderer's believe him, and the boy is in danger.You might find this all a contrivance—and I guess it is, in a way, a plot too tight and compact for real life—but it works to create genuine suspense. The characters are all very realistic, from the nice, regular parents who want their kid to start telling the truth to the bad couple upstairs who seem on the surface to be rather like the parents. Even the cops are just regular schmoes. The dark stairway, the window nailed shut, the chases through an abandoned building next door (set up by the opening of the movie with a bunch of kids using it for play), and endless futile persuasion by the boy, who obviously means what he says all add up to for compact, intense ride. And filmed with energy and such dark shadows you can't see a thing. Director Ted Tetzlaff is more known as a cinematographer (including on his last film, "Notorious," which is a masterpiece). As a director this is probably his best film, and he knows how to make the cinematographers under him give him the visual richness the film in its simplicity requires. The plot carries the ideas, for sure, but the visuals carry the mood and intensity, and that's the best of it. And there's not a wasted minute—it's practically a textbook exercise in how to direct with economy, and the benefits of doing so.See it. The title doesn't inspire much—it should be called "Murder in the Window" or something more compelling—but the movie does indeed inspire much. See why. Oh, and a really clean copy is streamable from Warner Archive, which even has a free two week trial.

The Window (1949) Director: Ted Tetzlaff (Notorious (director of photography) Writers: Mel Dinelli (screenplay), Cornell Woolrich (based on his story "The Boy Cried Murder") Cinematography by Robert De Grasse & William O. Steiner. Stars: Bobby Driscoll, Ruth Roman, Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, and Paul Stewart. A unique Noir Thriller. A Family Noir. A Kid's Noir. But not just any kid, the kid who was a denizen of an decaying urban rat warren in a city that was constantly regenerating. A city before the Manhattan el's were torn down, before TV, before air-conditioning, where clothes were dried on clothes lines, where playgrounds were winding back alleys, tar beach roof tops, jungle jim fire escapes, and condemned buildings that became, clubhouses, forts or whatever you may imagine. The real habitats of urban man circa 1948, apartment - street, hall - alley, sidewalk - pavement, steel - earth, inside - outside, light - dark. What really hits home with this film is its realistic telling of the tale from Tommy's POV (Bobby Driscoll). Any viewer with an urban background will find some touchstones to his own childhood or to the childhood stories of his parents. I still remember trying to sleep on hot, humid summer nights, in a second story apartment, where, thanks to a corner bedroom and two open windows any slight cross breeze brought relief. But it also provided the city lullabies of traffic, distant and near, the rattle of the Connecting RR winding off the Hell Gate Bridge, the faint roar of the sunken Grand Central. Nature provided the rustle of a sycamore from a breeze or the patter of rain on it's leaves. My best friend who lived in a bigger apartment house actually did sleep out on the fire escape to cool off with an el down the block. The film begins brilliantly with one of Tommy's fantasies instantly drawing us in to his world. We see a condemned building, we see black window, lying face down, we see Tommy. He awakens looking somewhat in pain, clutching his chest. A child in distress. Crawling forward he grabs a cap gun and we are brought to reality. Tommy is fantasizing, playing/acting out, a "shot" cowboy crawling in a hayloft to the hay-door from where he spots the "gang" playing cards. He shoots and his older buddies ignore him, a new game has replaced the one Tommy was still playing, and a fire truck siren from the street trumps even that. As Tommy makes his way to his street urchin buddies we follow the relatively benign, maze like, cinematic urban landscape that duplicates in reverse a final reckoning that, taking place in the dead of night, turns it all very noir-ish and frightening, murderous silhouettes on window shades, illumination stabbed by slanting shadows. The city, especially in this film, is given equal billing. William O. Steiner (cinematography) a native New Yorker along with two of the three assistant directors, informs the visual compositions with a loving and knowing familiarity. Interiors (studio probably) Art Direction by Italian born Sam Corso, native New Yorker Albert S. D'Agostino and Kansian Walter E. Keller looks flawless. All performances are top notch. Bobby Driscoll was incredibly talented. He's thoroughly believable as Tommy. All his interactions and reactions with his peers, with his parents especially his father Ed (Arthur Kennedy), with his neighbors, and with the police, as he tries to convince them that he's telling the truth ring clear. Barbara Hale and Arthur Kennedy are excellent as Tommy's doubting parents ratcheting up the tension/horror level every time they attempt to reason with or placate Tommy's accusations with the kind of statements most parents faced with the same situation would make. They even make Tommy confront the upstairs neighbors the Kellerson's. Joe Kellerson and Jean Kellerson are one of the most despicable couples in noir. Their grift is for looker Jean (Ruth Roman) to lure single men to their apartment, probably for sex, where she slips them knockout drops, Joe (Paul Stewart) then rolls them for their doe and dumps them in an alley. On a hot & humid night Tommy can't sleep, he wakes his mother Mary Woodry, (Barbara Hale) and asks if he can sleep out on the fire escape where it would be cooler, she says sure but be careful. Laying out in the sweltering evening with his pillow Tommy sees the towels hanging from the Kellerson's clothesline billow in a breeze, a breeze that doesn't reach down enough to give Tommy relief, so like any resourceful kid, Tommy grabs his pillow and climbs up to the Kellerson's landing to fall asleep there. He's awakened both by a shaft of light spilling across his face from the space between the bottom of a pull shade and the window sill, and the sounds of a grift going murderously wrong. Its a beautifully filmed sequence where the action is obscured, partially silhouetted by the shade and vividly focused through the slot. Though I've never read the Cornell Woolrich short story I have read that the story is even gorier. Lots of great sequences, watch for the police station cat. The original music score by Roy Webb even includes a leitmotif for Tommy. Great New York Noir 10/10