The Window (1949)
(On Cable TV, November 2022) Considering that film noir is often considered the epitome of film genre for adults, it’s remarkable that The Window features what other noirs usually exclude: a kid as a protagonist. Clearly working with blunt suspense tropes that show up everywhere but in the film noir genre, this is a film that combines explicit boy-cried-wolf themes with honest suspense when a kid witnesses a murder and the murderer comes to clean up witnesses. Straightforward at 73 minutes, this is a film that doesn’t waste time in niceties: it roars along with each essential scene. Young Bobby Driscol is quite good here, especially since he holds the film together far more than the adult actors. There’s some genuine menace in having a kid threatened with murder (not often done at the time, or even now) and the wonder here is in seeing such topics executed within the stylistic framework of film noir. While the result may be a bit formulaic to be that striking in a fatalistic film-noir sense (clearly, they’re not going to kill the kid!), The Window is an interesting entry in the genre’s canon.