House of Strangers

Edward G. Robinson, Richard Conte, and Susan Hayward star in this 1949 film noir about an Italian immigrant who starts out as a barber but becomes the founder of a bank that caters to immigrants. His domination of his wife and four sons leads to inevitable conflict. Famed director Joseph Mankiewicz wrote and directed this powerful drama. CC. 101 minutes.

Edward G. Robinson, one of the best actors of Hollywood's Golden Age, was never even nominated for an Academy award. However, for his performance in this film, Italian accent and all, he did win the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Despite Robinson's performance, Richard Conte dominates this film from the opening scene where he winds his way through a crowded Mulberry street in New York's Little Italy, to the climatic ending in the Monetti family mansion. Susan Hayward looks and acts like a femme fatale but turns out to be something else. The supporting cast, that includes Luther Adler, Joe Valentine, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as the three brothers, and Esther Minciotti as the long suffering Italian Mama is excellent.

This powerful film did not garner any Academy Award nominations, but Joseph Mankiewicz did win the Best Director award that year for A Latter to Three Wives. 

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Richard Conte and Susan Hayward

Scarlet Street

 Scarlet Street.

Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett star in this 1945 film noir directed by Fritz Lang. Robinson plays a meek office clerk whose meekness is compounded by one of the most domineering wives in film history. Anyway, one dark evening while walking home from an office party honoring him for years of loyal service, he gets involved in a street altercation and things spiral out of control with tragic results. 102 minutes. No subtitles.

The year before critics complained about the ending of Fritz Lang's film noir, The Woman in the Window, and so in 1945 Lang made a very similar film, Scarlet Street, with the same cast but with a dramatically different and dark ending.

Once again Joan Bennett is the femme fatale, and Dan Duryea the sleazy villain, but Robinson is again superb as the meek office clerk whose only consolation is painting which he does in his spare time despite the sneers of his wife. Eddie Muller's intro to this film claims that it is "essential" film noir, and Fritz Lange's best film. 

Dan Duryea and Joan Bennett

 

The Woman in the Window

 

Edward  G.  Robinson and Joan Bennett star in this 1944 film noir directed by Fritz Lang. Robinson plays a criminal law professor attending an academic convention in New York city who one night meets the model for a beautiful portrait displayed in his hotel window. This chance encounter leads to murder, blackmail and a very suspenseful climax. 99 minutes. 

Despite a long and brilliant film career, Edward G. Robinson never received even a nomination for an Academy Award. His Romanian Jewish family had settled in New York City before WWI, and he was educated in City schools where he developed an interest in acting. Eventually, he became a star during Hollywood’s Golden Age despite his small, stocky body, and unattractive looks. He burst into prominence in 1931 playing a snarling, vicious Italian gangster in Little Caesar. It was a role that would forever mark him as a tough guy, but unlike most stars he was able to have more than one film persona. 

Joan Bennett is a fine femme fatale in this film, and Dan Duryea establishes his own screen persona as a smarmy blackmailer. In his intro on TCM's Noir Alley Eddie Muller places this film with the wonderful crop of crime dramas from 1944 like Double Indemnity, Laura, Murder My Sweet, and Phantom Lady that established film noir in film history. ###

Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett