Édition Film Noir Nº 2: “House by the River” available today

With “House by the River” (1950) by Fritz Lang, UCM.ONE continues the Édition Film Noir on the label Artkeim². After “Interpol” now also this film classic “House by the River” (German title: “Das Todeshaus am Fluss“), a late work by master director Fritz Lang, is available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on DVD and VoD. The first physical edition is available as a limited Mediabook edition with a 16 pages booklet.

Director Fritz Lang coined the history of film by setting new aesthetic and technical standards, especially in the era of late silent film and early sound film. His films usually tell utopian and fantastic stories, which were staged in an expressively gloomy atmosphere. The silent movie “Metropolis” (1927) and the sound film “M – A city seeks a murderer” (1931) are among the milestones of German and international film history.

Synopsis:

The unsuccessful writer Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward) lives together with his wife Marjorie (Jane Wyatt) and his new housekeeper Emily Gaunt (Dorothy Patrick) in an old villa on the banks of a river. One afternoon, when his wife is in town, he receives a letter from the post office for his last work. He dries himself and imitates the maid. When she begins to scream loudly in his pushy approach, he grips Emily’s neck and strangles her in the affect. To make the body disappear unobtrusively, he asks his brother John for help. He wants to report the murder first to the police, but can then be persuaded, together to sink the body in the river …

More information about the movie: House by the River