# The Woman in the Window (1944 film)
**The Woman in the Window** is a 1944 American film noir directed by [Fritz Lang](https://www.edgepedia.org/fritz-lang), in which a mild-mannered professor's chance meeting with a woman he has admired in a portrait leads to an accidental killing, blackmail, and a cover-up that ends with the revelation that the events were a dream. It was produced and written by Nunnally Johnson for International Pictures and stars [Edward G. Robinson](https://www.edgepedia.org/edward-g-robinson), [Joan Bennett](https://www.edgepedia.org/joan-bennett), Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon, and Dan Duryea.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer / producer | Fritz Lang; Nunnally Johnson (writer and producer), from J.H. Wallis's novel *Once Off Guard*[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) |
| Cast | Edward G. Robinson (Professor Richard Wanley), Joan Bennett (Alice Reed), Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon, Dan Duryea[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) |
| Running time / company | 99 minutes; International Pictures, Inc.; cinematography by Milton Krasner[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) |
| Working title | *Once Off Guard*, the title of J.H. Wallis's source novel[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) |
| Recognition | Academy Award nomination for Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) |
| Follow-up | Lang reunited Robinson, Bennett, Duryea, and cinematographer Krasner for *Scarlet Street* (1945)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) |
## Spoilers
- **Ending:** The central murder-and-cover-up story is revealed as a nightmare Wanley has had after falling asleep at his club[2](https://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Books/PDF%20Files/Encyclopedia%20of%20Film%20Noir%20%28Geoff%20Mayer%2C%20Brian%20McDonnell%29.pdf)
### Plot
Professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson), a professor of criminal psychology, sends his wife and children off for the summer and settles into a quiet routine with his friends, district attorney Frank Lalor ([Raymond Massey](https://www.edgepedia.org/raymond-massey)) and physician Dr. Michael Barkstane (Edmund Breon). Pausing before a gallery window, the three men admire a portrait of a young woman; Wanley meets the sitter, Alice Reed (Joan Bennett), and accepts her invitation for a drink. At her apartment, her jealous boyfriend Claude Mazard (Arthur Loft) arrives in a rage, attacks Wanley, and is killed in self-defense. Wanley and Alice dispose of the body, and the situation darkens when the boyfriend's companion Heidt ([Dan Duryea](https://www.edgepedia.org/dan-duryea)), a former police detective turned blackmailer, begins extorting them. The pressure mounts until, after Alice's failed attempt to poison Heidt, Wanley apparently dies by suicide, taking an overdose of his own prescribed drug, and the film then reveals that everything after Wanley falling asleep at his club was a dream.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/woman_in_the_window) • [2](https://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Books/PDF%20Files/Encyclopedia%20of%20Film%20Noir%20%28Geoff%20Mayer%2C%20Brian%20McDonnell%29.pdf) • [14](https://www.filmsite.org/womaninthewindow.html)
The dream frame is delivered with a slow track-in and a slow track-out showing Wanley asleep in his chair, after which he passes the gallery window again and sees the portrait, now with a different meaning for him.[2](https://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Books/PDF%20Files/Encyclopedia%20of%20Film%20Noir%20%28Geoff%20Mayer%2C%20Brian%20McDonnell%29.pdf)
### The dream ending
**The ending is the film's most discussed feature.** The conclusion was changed because of censorship issues: the Arts Desk notes that the film honors the Production Code's censorious strictures by using a bookending device that recasts the central action as a nightmare, and High-Def Digest likewise reports that the conclusion was changed due to censorship issues.[4](https://theartsdesk.com/film/blu-ray-woman-window) • [5](https://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/silents-to-seventies-woman-in-the-window-1944/) In a modern interview, Lang stated that producer Nunnally Johnson opposed the film's dream ending.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) Lang himself defended the device, saying the dream-ending was a way for Wanley to escape the machinery of fate, and he credited it with contributing to the film's commercial success, chuckling that it was "such a corny old trick that it seemed almost new" when he decided to press it into use one more time.[6](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/cteq/woman_window/)
Commentators have read the device in two directions. The Encyclopedia of Film Noir argues that, whatever its origin in Code accommodation, the frame lets the film work as a conservative morality play while still letting the audience enjoy watching a middle-aged man punished for acting on repressed desires, with the punishment softened by a happy ending.[2](https://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Books/PDF%20Files/Encyclopedia%20of%20Film%20Noir%20%28Geoff%20Mayer%2C%20Brian%20McDonnell%29.pdf) The Arts Desk describes the bookending as a *Wizard of Oz*-like device that softens the story's fatalism, and High-Def Digest compares its effect to *The Wizard of Oz* and the famous *Dallas* shower-scene reversal, noting that it releases tension and gives Robinson's character an appropriate coda.[4](https://theartsdesk.com/film/blu-ray-woman-window) • [5](https://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/silents-to-seventies-woman-in-the-window-1944/) Audience and critical responses remain divided between those who see a clever meta-twist and those who find it a cheat that undercuts the built-up tension.[7](https://quartilefilm.com/films/17136/the-woman-in-the-window)
## Production
The working title was *Once Off Guard*. According to Hollywood Reporter news items gathered by the AFI Catalog, background footage was shot in New York City in December 1943, and the film was shot on soundstages at the Goldwyn, Paramount, RKO, PRC, and Selznick studios in May and June 1944. In November 1943 the English actor Harry Lester was tested for a featured role, and Lang hoped to cast the New York police officer Johnny Broderick as himself. In March 1944 [Merle Oberon](https://www.edgepedia.org/merle-oberon) was announced for the part of Alice Reed, and Chicago police officer Alicia Murphy was tested for the jail matron, though her appearance in the released film was not confirmed. Raymond Massey was borrowed from Warner Bros. The portrait of Joan Bennett seen in the film was painted by Paul Clemens.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW)
AFI dates the film's release to 3 November 1944, while Rotten Tomatoes lists a wide theatrical release of January 26, 1944.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) • [3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/woman_in_the_window)
## Place in film noir
The film is widely treated as Lang's first film noir in his American career, after earlier proto-noir pictures such as *M* and *Fury*.[8](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2019/05/the-woman-in-the-window-masters-of-cinema/) Mick LaSalle, film critic emeritus of the *San Francisco Chronicle*, notes that this quintessential noir appeared in 1944, a year before the atomic bombings, which contradicts the often-repeated idea that the genre's despair grew directly out of [Hiroshima](https://www.edgepedia.org/hiroshima) and Nagasaki.[9](https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/the-woman-in-the-window-a-classic-1944-film-21175774.php)
Milton Krasner's cinematography works in a controlled studio-noir tradition, using deep shadow calibrated to Lang's preference for geometric precision rather than atmospheric excess; the film's recurring motifs include mirrors, clocks, and shop windows.[10](https://classicnoir.com/films/woman-in-the-window) • [11](https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film729872.html) The portrait in the shop window places an idealized image of a woman at the story's center, a device scholars have linked to the painted portraits of *Laura* (1944) and *Rebecca* (1940), onto which Wanley projects his own fantasies.[12](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/scapvc/film/movie/contents/woman_in_the_window_rappaport.pdf)
## Scarlet Street and legacy
In 1945 Lang brought Bennett, Robinson, and Duryea back together with cinematographer Milton Krasner for *Scarlet Street*, the second of his two noirs with the trio; there Robinson again plays a timid New York bourgeois tempted by Bennett's alluring woman, with Duryea as the manipulative sleaze.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) • [4](https://theartsdesk.com/film/blu-ray-woman-window) Critics often treat *The Woman in the Window* as a dry run for *Scarlet Street*, which many reviewers rank above it.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/woman_in_the_window) • [9](https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/the-woman-in-the-window-a-classic-1944-film-21175774.php)
On 25 June 1945, Lux Radio Theatre broadcast a radio version starring Bennett and Robinson.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW) The film holds an 83% Tomatometer score from 29 reviews and an 84% Popcornmeter score from over 1,000 audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/woman_in_the_window) It has been restored on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber and Masters of Cinema, and multiple transfers circulate in the public domain with inconsistent quality.[13](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/the-woman-in-the-window-bd/) • [10](https://classicnoir.com/films/woman-in-the-window)
## References
1. [The Woman in the Window (1944), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24256-THE-WOMAN-IN-THE-WINDOW)
2. [The Woman in the Window entry, Encyclopedia of Film Noir (Mayer & McDonnell)](https://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Books/PDF%20Files/Encyclopedia%20of%20Film%20Noir%20%28Geoff%20Mayer%2C%20Brian%20McDonnell%29.pdf)
3. [The Woman in the Window, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/woman_in_the_window)
4. [Blu-ray: The Woman in the Window, The Arts Desk](https://theartsdesk.com/film/blu-ray-woman-window)
5. [From Silents to the Seventies: The Woman in the Window (1944), High-Def Digest](https://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/silents-to-seventies-woman-in-the-window-1944/)
6. [The Woman in the Window, Senses of Cinema](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/cteq/woman_window/)
7. [The Woman in the Window (1944), Quartile](https://quartilefilm.com/films/17136/the-woman-in-the-window)
8. [The Woman in the Window, Masters of Cinema Blu-ray review, Blueprint: Review](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2019/05/the-woman-in-the-window-masters-of-cinema/)
9. ['The Woman in the Window,' a classic 1944 film noir from director Fritz Lang, San Francisco Chronicle](https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/the-woman-in-the-window-a-classic-1944-film-21175774.php)
10. [Woman in the Window (1944), Classic Noir](https://classicnoir.com/films/woman-in-the-window)
11. [The Woman in the Window (1944), FilmAffinity](https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film729872.html)
12. [Woman in the Window (Rappaport), University of Warwick](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/scapvc/film/movie/contents/woman_in_the_window_rappaport.pdf)
13. [Review: Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window on Kino Lorber Blu-ray, Slant Magazine](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/the-woman-in-the-window-bd/)
14. [The Woman in the Window (1944)](https://www.filmsite.org/womaninthewindow.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Film noir and neo-noir films › Released 1940 to 1975*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license