THE WINDOW

US, 1949, 73 minutes, Black and white.
Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart, Ruth Roman, Bobby Driscoll.
Directed by Ted Tetzlaff.

The Window is based on a story by prolific writer Cornell Woolridge. Films based on his stories began as early as 1928. Some of his titles include Night Has a Thousand Eyes, I Married a Dead Man (filmed as No Man of Her Own and in France under this original title) as well as providing the basis for such classics as Rear Window.

The film is a variation on the boy who cried wolf. Bobby Driscoll (Jim Hawkins in the Disney Treasure Island) is a nine-year-old who tells tales – telling everyone that his family will move to a western ranch. His parents are exasperated with him. During the summer, Tommy is asleep on the fire escape, outside an apartment – and sees the owners of the apartment kill a man. Nobody will believe Tommy – and the murderers want to silence him. This is a brief-running film, with quite some tension, and has been considered a classic of its kind. Barbara Hale and Arthur Kennedy are the parents. Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman are the murderers.

The film was directed by Ted Tetzlaff who had worked as a prolific cinematographer in Hollywood until the mid-1940s when he began to direct films. They are conventional films including Fighting Father Dunne, The White Tower, Time Bomb.

1. This has become a classic minor thriller. Audience expectations of a thriller, fulfilment?

2. The small budget, black and white photography, introduction to New York, atmosphere? The music? The structure of the screenplay over 24 hours? The compression of characterization and events into 73 minutes?

3. The importance of audience knowledge and reaction to the fable by Aesop? How well was the film an illustration of Aesop's fable? In character, point, moral and warning? The value of this kind of warning and its effect on people?

4. The shots leading into New York, the setting of the city atmosphere, the people as city types? The final fade-out from the city after we have shared the events? The importance of this urban setting?

5. Bobby Driscoll's performance as Tommy? Its qualities? What kind of little boy in himself, first seeing him pretend to die, his relationship with the other boys, telling them stories, chasing them, our knowledge of the layout of the building while Tommy was telling his stories and playing with the children? The importance of his story about the ranch and the reaction of visitors coming to look over the apartment? The irony that Bobby could guess the temperature? How well did the audience get to know him, like him, identify with him during his dangerous 24 hours? The importance of the boy who cried Wolf?

6. The presentation of Tommy’s parents as ordinary people, the quality of their marriage and relationship, work, housework, living in the apartment, coping? Such details as the sick sister, meals? Their reaction to Tommy’s
stories, his lies? Their exasperation with the people who came to look over the apartment? Their reaction to Tommy, apologies? Their not believing him in the principal story? Their making him apologise to the Kellersons? Their response to the telegram, locking Tommy in his room, worrying about him? How credible were they as ordinary parents? The impact of the events on them? Their reaction at the end?

7. The film’s building up the atmosphere of the hot night? Tommy’s father out working Tommy moving outside, upstairs, the subjective viewing through the slit in the window of the murder? Our sharing Tommy’s amazement as we watch the murder and wonder what to do? The effect on him, his slipping downstairs, the pillow? His worry about the truth, the fact that people would not believe him, his not eating? His parent’s reaction, his going to the police and their reaction? His writing the note to run away and the use of the note? The build-up of the atmosphere of fear and terror?

8. Tommy's mother taking him to apologise to the Kellersons and that making them suspicious? The importance of the police visit and the casual searching of the house?

9. The fact that we did not know very much about the Kellersons except what Tommy and his family said about them? The fact that we had seen the murder? the carrying away of the body, hiding it? Knowing the Kellersons’, plan? The visit of the police? Their fear? The build-up to the night visit, the chase, the taxi ride, the suspense of sitting Tommy on the edge and hoping he would fall? His quick thinking and running away and their pursuit? The suspense of the chaos, the build-up of the dangers from the building we already knew, Kellerson’s death? How well delineated were the characters and the motivation of the Kellersons?

10. The contribution of the taxi drivers? the police?

11. The way the chase was filmed? The ingenuity of Tommy to elude danger? The final build-up of his being isolated on the beam? His fear, presence of his parents, the danger? His jumping?

12. How entertaining is this kind of thriller? How valuable when presented as a moral fable?