The House Across the Lake

The House Across the Lake (AKA: Heat Wave) is directed by Ken Hughes and he also adapts the screenplay from his own novel High Wray. It stars Alex Nicol, Hillary Brooke, Sid James, Susan Stephen and Paul Carpenter. Music is by Ivor Slaney and cinematography by Walter J. Harvey.

American novelist Mark Kendrick (Nicol) is living in England and trying to finish his latest novel. When he is invited for drinks at the house across the lake, Mark becomes entangled in the web of a beautiful blonde...

OK! This plot is hardly new and film noir boasts some truly excellent pictures where a man is duped into a downward spiral by a femme fatale vixen. In that respect, this Hammer Film Production can't compete, either in production value or quality of narrative, yet this is still worthy of inspection by the film noir faithful.

Nicol's (looking like a poor man's Sterling Hayden) Mark Kendrick and Brooke's Carol Forrest are classic noir characters, he tells us his weakness is women, his constant narration sombre and hapless, she's an icy cold bitch of considerable sting. And with Sid James moping around forlornly as the rich husband who is ill of health and broken of heart, the characterisations are vibrant and performed to a good standard to draw us into the play.

The air is ripe with pungent pessimism, we know from the off that Mark is in trouble, and sure enough the tale contains treachery, death and moral murkiness. Unfortunately the visuals don't quite match the mood of plotting. The lakeside shots are well done, and Kendrick's cottage with the venetian blinds briefly offer up some promise of noirish disharmony, but mostly the picture is filmed in standard black and white and a trick is missed to elevate the piece to better heights.

Visual missed chances aside, this is a good low budget Brit noir that gets in and does the job well. 7/10

An American writer (Alex Nicol), down on his luck, meets his rich neighbors who also live by the lake. He befriends the ailing husband (Sid James) and falls in love with the duplicitous wife (Hillary Brooke).

Ken Hughes directed "The House Across the Lake" (with the irrelevant American title of "Heat Wave") from his own screenplay based on his own novel. I guess he is the only one to blame for the story's blatant rip-off of James M. Cain (particularly "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity"). But at least he rips off the best, which means this crime thriller is more engaging than most of the films included in VCI's "Hammer Noir" DVD collection.

At a time when noir production was converting to TV, Lippert hooked up with England's Hammer Films. (And that's before Hammer hooked up with Dracula and Frankenstein.) Judging from this effort, budget minded Lippert got a lot more bang for their buck overseas.

Compared with traditional noir, the settings here are much more naturalistic than expressionistic. There's little of the usual menace of light and shadow. Instead, most scenes are shot on location with natural lighting, except for the climactic fog-bound sequence. This undercuts atmosphere and mood, staples of standard noir. As a result, it's the fateful story that's highlighted. And since the story is narrated in flashback, it seems the outcome is pre- determined in some metaphysical sense.

Sure, you've seen the story before, as others point out. A rich man's slutty wife (Brooke) conspires to kill him with key help from a luckless fall guy (Nicol). Sounds like Double Indemnity (1944) even down to the double-cross. Still, the screenplay is good enough to hold interest. And was there ever a more stately ice queen than Hillary Brooke. It's hard to see her ever unwinding enough for intimacy. And therein lies a problem. Too bad the film couldn't show some stage of real melt from her, like a dash of undress or even mussed-up mascara. Nicol too is pretty low-key for a guy obsessed. But then this is 1954, not exactly the anything goes of more recent vintage. In my book, it's luckless Sidney James who steals the film, with his nicely modulated peek at a doomed man. I like the way the script only later fills in why he's so seemingly indifferent to his wife's very public affairs. That way we're left really curious for a well-timed period.

Anyhow, the movie's much better than the lowly two-stars out of four that TCM rates it. Then again, maybe I'm just a sucker for any noir with a well-turned ankle.

In 1950, American producer Robert Lippert formed a business alliance with Hammer studios. Under the agreement, Lippert would provide American acting talent - frequently shop-worn stars or just supporting actors who fancied a profitable trip out of the country - while Hammer would supply the rest of the cast and the production facilities. Together they would split the profits. Famous for his concern with the bottom line, Lippert produced over 140 films between 1946 and 1955, characteristically genre pieces such as I Shot Jesse James or Rocketship XM. For the British deal, most of the films were noir-ish thrillers - and include this title.

Sidney James, a regular in this run of productions, appears in House Across The Lake. He plays successfully against type for once, as a millionaire in possession of a straying wife. Directed by Ken Hughes from his own novel, and who a year later also directed another highlight of James' career in Joe Macbeth (1955), as well as later Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) this taut, entirely successful noir thriller is one of the highlights of the Lippert-Hammer noir series (another is The Glass Cage - both available on DVD). A down-and-out writer (Alex Nichol) is invited across the lake to a rich household where he is naturally soon ensnared by a cunning fatale, leading to a waterborne death and inevitable double cross. Although the lure of sex is not quite as explicit as in The Flanagan Boy, which also appears as part of the Hammer series now reissued, House Across The Lake still manages to suggest perfectly satisfactorily the moral quagmire into which the urges of men lead them as well as an effective noir universe, which includes an extended flashback and, that archetypal device, the rueful voice-over. Recommended.

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