OVP: The Window (1949)

Film: The Window (1949)
Stars: Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart, Ruth Roman, Bobby Driscoll

Director: Ted Tetzlaff

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Editing)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

There are occasionally films from the 1930's and 1940's that remind you that television didn't exist at the time.  Primarily, these are films like Andy Hardy or the Bowery Boys which would have almost certainly been a television series had that been an option at the time, rather than having 3-4 films coming out each year within the respective series.  The Window, on the other hand, is in the frame of the after school special, a cautionary tale that were it not for the pedigreed cast and impressive camerawork, would have been forgotten just as quickly as those afternoon movies.

The film stars young Tommy (Driscoll), who has a penchant for telling falsehoods while living in the tenament section of the Lower East Side and is constantly causing his parents (Hale and Kennedy) trouble, and almost gets them evicted in the film's opening scenes.  Like the boy who cried wolf, Tommy soons finds the need for people to believe him when he witnesses a couple (Roman and Stewart) commit a murder.  Tommy tries to convince his parents that the couple have committed the murder, and then tries to tell the police, but for nearly the entire film, no one believes him, except the culprits, who are told about Tommy's witnessing their deed, and then try to kill him.

(Spoilers ahead) The film gets a little ridiculous at this point, as Tommy consistently alludes what appears to be professional criminals, despite showing little intelligence earlier in the film, and we get to see daring scenes, including Tommy nearly dying in a collapsing building.  Since it's the 1940's, you know that Tommy will eventually convince his parents of the truth and the murderers are going to be caught, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't try and make it a little more unpredictable and less "convenient" (there's a scene where Tommy sees his father while being chased by Stewart's character, and waits until after his father gets into a cab to call out his name, defeating the purpose and giving away his location in one full swoop).

Most of what will sell this film for you is whether you buy into Driscoll's performance or not.  Barbara Hale (yes, Della Street herself) and 5-time Oscar nominee Arthur Kennedy are clearly fine actors, but they get one-note characters and don't take much time to stretch their acting muscles, and quite frankly, don't get enough screentime to save the film if you don't care for Driscoll's work, which I'll admit I don't.  Driscoll won the Juvenile Oscar that year, in part for his performance here (for the sake of the OVP, I will only be counting a Juvenile Oscar win amongst the Oscar-winning films if the film itself was specifically cited, like The Search or Pollyanna, but I will point out if a performer won the Oscar if the film received another citation from the Academy), but I am not a fan.  His performance is sometimes very naturalistic, but at other times he's clearly aware that he's being filmed, and I'm going to (fairly or unfairly) attribute his more naturalistic moments to Tatzlaff, rather than Driscoll himself.  Driscoll, a huge star as a child, would go on to have an extremely difficult life, eventually becoming homeless, a drug addict, and went to jail before his death at age 31 (he was also briefly a part of the Andy Warhol circle in the late 1960's).

The film received its only Oscar nomination for its best attribute, its editing.  The film is able to maintain much of its suspense through its pacing, knowing just when to keep the focus on one character long enough for us to worry about what is going on offscreen as we see it onscreen.  I specifically remember one scene where Stewart, having realized that Tommy has not in fact left the apartment (he had written a note stating that he is a running away), but is locked into his bedroom and trying to escape.  The camera sheepishly watches Tommy trying to grab the key, unaware that Stewart is on the other side of the door, ready to attack once he gets out.  Most editors would have intercut with both characters, but Frederic Knudtson (who received his first of six nominations for this film) smartly focuses on the sly Stewart, letting Tommy struggle to find the key before he finally puts it in his reach.  It's a smart way of telling just how dasterdly the villain is, and it gives genuine suspense to a seemingly meaningless scene.

And what about you-have you seen The Window?  Do you think that Driscoll's performance was worthy of the Academy Award (and what do you think about his brief filmography)?  And what other film staples of the pre-television era do you wish would make a comeback?