The Face at the Window

Cecile is the stunning young daughter of a banker. It seems everybody in town wants to marry her. Lucien is her father's clerk and her own love interest. When the bank is robbed Lucien vows to solve the crime with the intentions of seeking Cecile's hand in marriage as his reward.

Lucio, though, has other ideas. (Don't get them confused, his name is similar to Lucien's because of a plot point I won't be divulging). Lucio is an older and unscrupulous man. He offers to more or less single-handedly save the bank but also wants Cecile as his reward. She's having none of that, though.

Spurned Lucio decides to frame Lucien not only for the robbery but also for a string of murders. The plot thickens like overcooked soup when another murder takes place in Lucien's general vicinity, and he challenges Lucio to a duel to the death. We know who's innocent and who isn't, but getting out of the clutches of evil men will prove difficult. A mad scientist is the best hope for proof of innocence.

Tod Slaughter is probably the biggest draw here, and I've got to hand it to him he plays an utterly believable SOB. Most of the acting here is fair and some even might even be considered pretty good. The crappy audio quality hurts the performances, unfortunately.

I'm going to show my complete lack of French culture here, but I found the French names hard to follow. I guess it seemed odd to me partially because these people don't sound French at all unless they are saying one of their names. Gua-fwa-whattheheckdidhejustsay? I was finally able to latch on to a couple of them as I figured out just exactly which character was “Lucien” whatever-his-last-name-is. For Tod's character I relied completely on facial recognition. His first name, Lucio, is not mentioned until closer to the end and not used much. I'm going to guess that the average American viewer is going to fall into the same boat as I do and find the difficult character names annoying.

Other than that it's kind of a mediocre story. The conflicts between Lucien and Lucio with Cecile in the middle are good, but the disfigured killer howling like a wolf to announce his kills has a pretty weak payoff. The willingness of the police to jump on the innocent man at the drop of a hat comes off almost comically rather than dramatically. And while Lucien ultimately comes up with a clever way of proving what he claims is true, up to that point he seems to have a lack of the wherewithal to defend himself.

The end result is a fairly enjoyable if not terribly impressive movie. The actors help a lot, and the story isn't so bad that it spoils the whole experience.

MORALITY:

Not surprisingly for an old black and white movie this is quite tame. The violence is mild. The titular face at the window is kind of grotesque, but we only see it for a few seconds and only a couple of times.

There is no nudity, sexuality, or strong language.

SPIRITUALITY:

I guess it's naive to think that evil men will never get the upper hand over the innocent. All we can do sometimes is stay faithful and trust that all things work together for the good of those that love the Lord. That's easier said than done, when we're being walked all over like a doormat to the mud pit, but God hasn't forgotten you.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Face at the Window is not worth a lot of effort to see, but it's not bad, either. If you like old movies with dramatic intrigue then it's probably worth a moment of your time.

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