The House Across the Lake (1954)

Surprisingly good for a budget Hammer film. Lacking the tantalising gorgeousness of Rita Hayworth or the star-power of Orson Welles and Everett Sloane in Lady from Shanghai the similarly water-borne and much more likely inspiration, the leads do well and the director/screenwriter keeps things nicely atmospheric. The plot twists are effective. But overall the plot lacks the complexity, novelty and power of Lady from Shanghai and the ending is sudden and perfunctory. And ungallant though it might be to say so, the film's femme fatale it has to be said is mature to the point of being a femme mildly injurious but certainly is not lacking in the dramatic stakes.A 6.5 Seen on Talking Pictures TV

***SPOILERS*** Drowning his troubles in a bottle of scotch at the British Lake Windermere Yacht Club American writer Mark Kendrick, Alex Nicol, spills his guts out to the person, who for the time being shall remain nameless, he meets there about what a fool he was to get involved with icy blond Carol Forrest, Hillary Brooke. It was Carol who manipulated him into doing what he did for her own selfish and murderous interests. That for him to be a pasty in her plans to off her husband Beverely Forrest, Sidney James, and then be left holding the bag as she checked out on Mark with pianist Vincent Gordon,Paul Carpenter.This nightmare started of for Mark when he was invited to a party thrown by Carol to help ferry with his motor boat her guests back to shore after it was discovered that the boat that took them there was out of gas. It was later that Mark took the gas-tank in being set up to whack Beverely while on a fishing trip at lake Windermear planned by Carol. What really set Carol off was the discovery that her old man, who knew she only married him for his money, was going to cut her out of his will and thus out of the lifestyle she's been so used to living. Also her step-daughter Andrea, Susan Stephen, saw through her and was also doing everything possible to get her dad Beverely to divorce Carol before she did him him for good.****SPOILERS**** Not realizing that he was being set up Mark together with Carol and Beverly went out on the lake fishing in pea soup thick fog when by avoiding another boat ended up knocking Beverly off the control or watch booth where he busted up his skull and landed unconscious on the deck below. With his back turned and keeping his eye on the steering wheel Carol pushed the unconscious Beverly overboard where he ends up drowning. With Carol who claimed to be in love with him now dumping Mark for the piano player, whom he detested, he just about had all he could take from her and decided to do the right thing. And with that Mark decides to spill the beans of what he did in him being an accomplice, or better yet pasty, in Beverely's murder of her husband. And the person whom he spilled the beans to, as well as buying him a couple of drinks, is the police detective on the case who's been hounding him all throughout the entire movie Inspt.Maclennan, Alan Wheatley.

The unappealing Hillary Brooke plays a femme fatal so obvious, so one dimensional, that you want to see her conquest (Alex Nicol) disposed of, not for murder, but for stupidity. Badly photographed, Brooke is so heavily made up, she ends up looking like Theda Bara in a blonde wig. The opening gives promise to the typical film noir set-up of a down on his luck writer in unbelievable lust for the wife of a wealthy Englishman who befriends him, warning Nicol of his wife's evil tendencies and reveals his intentions to cut her out of his will. Told through flashback, its short running time and cheap look (especially a screenplay filled with trite dialog and obviously written too quickly) make it appear as a TV play. The result is a choppy melodrama with far too many clichés, a stupid hero and a vixen who is about as sexy as your maiden aunt librarian. You'll ask yourself if the script writer and the continuity director were one and the same as more and more elements of falsehood reveal themselves.

Released in the US by Lippert as "Heat Wave", The House Across The Lake (actually a more accurate title, although Heat Wave suggests some of Hillary Brooke's smoldering sensuality!) is yet another film owing a debt to both Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. American Alex Nicol stars as a heavy-drinking writer who lives across the lake from Hillary Brooke, a scheming Black Widow temptress who teases various men she meets while being married to a wealthy but distant husband (yes, all the cliches are here, but they play well!). Needless to say, Nicol begins a friendship with the husband while falling for the ravishing Ms. Brooke, and any lover of noir thrillers can probably predict the way the film develops. Still, it is well-played by the leads and by the British supporting cast, and Mr. Nicol convincingly portrays a man beaten-down by life, who is brought to the point where he has nothing to lose. I won't give away the ending, but it seems somewhat of a surprise while it is happening, which is what a good mystery should do, even if it is constructed from well-known plot elements of the genre. If you like post-war B&W noir-tinged mysteries of this type, it's a good way to spend 85 minutes on a rainy day--and another opportunity to re-acquaint yourselves with the two underrated American stars, Alex Nicol and Hillary Brooke (fans of Ms. Brooke should check out the early 50s gem CONFIDENCE GIRL, co-starring Tom Conway, for a real Hillary Brooke tour-de-force).