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Secret Beyond the Door...

Secret Beyond the Door... (1948)

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No Score Yet...

Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 4
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 1

audience

64

liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 590

My Rating

Movie Info

Even star Joan Bennett and director Fritz Lang regarded The Secret Beyond the Door as the weakest of their collaborative efforts. Bennett plays spoiled socialite Celia, who falls recklessly in love with the handsome but emotionally complex Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave, in his first American film). After their wedding, Celia becomes uncomfortably aware that Mark's mild distrust of women is actually a deep-set, and potentially dangerous, hatred. Even when facing the possibility that she'll be

Unrated,

Drama, Mystery & Suspense, Classics

Rufus King, Silvia Richards

Apr 22, 2006

Universal Pictures

Cast

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All Critics (13) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (7) | Rotten (7) | DVD (1)

Probably the most psychoanalytically oriented of his features, and because it's Lang, the murkiness is mainly a strength.

February 25, 2013 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Mr. Lang is still a director who knows how to turn the obvious, such as locked doors and silent chambers and roving spotlights, into strangely tingling stuff.

April 4, 2011 Full Review Source: New York Times
New York Times
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Mental complexities of the principals makes it sometimes hard to sort out the various motivations used to spin the tale.

April 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[Lang's] direction is masterly, imposing meanings and tensions through images that are spare, resonant and astonishingly beautiful. A remarkable film.

April 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The result is heavy going and pretentious.

February 25, 2013 Full Review Source: Radio Times
Radio Times

The most successful aspect of the production is the cinematography, which creates a shadowy world of false appearances, hidden meanings, and elusive truths.

February 25, 2013 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Borrowing a plot from the Bluebeard legend, and chucking in a load of sub-Freudian hokum, Fritz Lang nonetheless makes a class act of this Gothic psycho-thriller.

February 25, 2013 Full Review Source: Total Film
Total Film

Sloppy effort from Lang late in his career.

February 25, 2013 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine
Empire Magazine

Suspicion this is not.

February 25, 2013 Full Review Source: Film4
Film4

Secret Beyond the Door ventures into some astounding arenas (even for Lang, who was an expert in paranoia), both of the mind and otherwise.

September 12, 2012 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid
Combustible Celluloid

Insofar as every Lang film you haven't seen is an undiscovered country, Secret Beyond the Door flies high over its seemingly anonymous place in the master's 1940s phase.

September 7, 2012 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine

Poetry of architecture, rejection of Freud

January 6, 2010 Full Review Source: CinePassion
CinePassion

Strange, weirdly inventive thriller

August 13, 2005 Full Review Source: Classic Film and Television
Classic Film and Television

Even Lang himself thought this was a poor film.

April 21, 2003 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Audience Reviews for Secret Beyond the Door...

definitely the weakest of the lang/bennett films but the very weird plot makes it worth watching. however the ending is a total copout
September 14, 2009
rubystevens
Stella Dallas

Super Reviewer

Considering the year it was made, it is quite a perverse film.
Some great visuals and a very interesting (if not overly complex) premise.
Part of both it's charm and short coming is the horribly dated dialog, but the potential is there for a great film.
October 11, 2010
RCCLBC
Robert C

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Secret Beyond the Door (DE)
  • Secret Beyond the Door (UK)
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