House by the River is a 1950

1950 in film

The year 1950 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 15 - Walt Disney Studios' animated film Cinderella debuts.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:*Ambush...

 film directed by Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...

. The Gothic crime story is considered film noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

. The film was released by Republic Pictures

Republic Pictures

Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....

.

Plot

A rich novelist (Stephen Byrne) who lives and works by a river kills his attractive maid after she begins screaming following a drunken pass. The writer, with the help of his limping brother, loads the body into an old sack and the pair throws the body into the river. Unfortunately, the body comes back up and floats by the house days later. Despite desperate attempts by the brothers to get the body, the police end up recovering it. The writer, who uses the woman's disappearance and killing for publicity for his books, realizes that his brother is the one who is going to be accused of the crime. Meanwhile, he begins writing a book about the crime in another attempt to cash in on the scandal. His wife and brother begin to fall in love, despite the fact that he has become the prime suspect.

Critical reaction

Reviews for the film were mixed when first released. Modern reviewers tend to give the gothic noir more positive write ups. Richard Brody for the New Yorker Magazine http://www.newyorker.com/goingson/movies/articles/051226gomo_GOAT_movies1 writes in his 2005 review: "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."

Cast

• Louis Hayward
  Louis Hayward
  Louis Charles Hayward was a British actor born in South Africa.-Biography:Born in Johannesburg, Hayward began his screen work in British films, notably as Simon Templar in Leslie Charteris' The Saint in New York.] In 1939 he played a dual role in The Man in the Iron Mask.During World War II,...
  
   as Stephen Byrne
• Jane Wyatt
  Jane Wyatt
  Jane Waddington Wyatt was an American actress perhaps best known for her role as the housewife and mother on the television comedy Father Knows Best, and as Amanda Grayson, the human mother of Spock on the science fiction television series Star Trek...
  
   as Marjorie Byrne
• Lee Bowman
  Lee Bowman
  Lee Bowman was an American film and television actor.Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bowman graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1936 and began his film career playing a bit part in Swing High, Swing Low .His many film appearances include A Man to Remember , Love Affair , Third...
  
   as John Byrne
• Dorothy Patrick
  Dorothy Patrick
  Dorothy Patrick, was an American film actress and a John Robert Powers model.-Early Life:...
  
   as Emily Gaunt
• Ann Shoemaker as Mrs. Ambrose