ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

seymourblack-1 There must be many movies that arrive on-screen in a different form to what was originally envisaged but few can have undergone as radical a transformation as this psychological drama which was based on Mitchell Wilson's 1945 novel "None So Blind". Following negative audience responses to its previews, RKO insisted on substantial amounts of re-editing and re-shooting which resulted in an end-product that contained certain passages that became surreal, elliptical or somewhat oblique. Perversely, however, these qualities proved to be entirely consistent with the mysterious, enigmatic and unpredictable natures of its main characters and so made the final version both offbeat and interesting to watch.Lieutenant Scott Burnett (Robert Ryan), who works for the U.S. Coast Guard, is haunted by recurring nightmares that are a legacy of his wartime experiences and is also engaged to Eve Geddes (Nan Leslie), who's the daughter of a local boat builder. When he's carrying out one of his daily beach patrols on horseback, he meets a woman called Peggy Butler (Joan Bennett) who's collecting wood from the remains of an old shipwreck. As they talk, she immediately senses his torment and suggests a strategy that might help him to come to terms with his demons. A bond quickly develops between them and when Scott meets Peggy's husband, Tod (Charles Bickford), who's a famous artist who'd had to give up his work after losing his sight, he finds that the retired painter is keen to get to know him.When they all have dinner together at the Butlers' beach-side house, it soon becomes apparent to Scott that the married couple have a rather strained relationship and Peggy later tells him that she only stays with her husband because of the guilt she feels about having been responsible for accidentally blinding him during one of their many drinking sessions. Scott, who later becomes aware that Tod beats his wife, also becomes convinced that the painter isn't actually blind and decides to free Peggy from him by proving that she has no reason to keep feeling guilty about the accident that deprived Tod of his career.After becoming infatuated by Peggy, Scott cruelly neglects his fiancée and decides to test his theory about Tod's blindness by taking him to the edge of some nearby cliffs and leaving him there to make his own way back. This stunt and a later one, during which he tries to kill Tod, don't end in the ways that he'd hoped but matters eventually come to a head when Tod resorts to a very desperate and spectacular way of freeing himself from his past and his obsessions (viz. his painting and Peggy).The three main characters in this story are full of contradictions and obsessions that make them fascinating and bewildering. Robert Ryan, in a very intense performance, is extremely edgy, brittle and troubled as a man who knows that he's still unwell despite having been discharged from a military hospital after having been declared cured of his mental and physical injuries. Joan Bennett is tremendous in a role that required her to be consistently ambiguous in terms of what she says and does and Charles Bickford very subtly reveals the different facets of Tod's character and the complex nature of his relationship with Peggy.The bleak, isolated surroundings in which this drama unfolds contribute strongly to its unsettling atmosphere and its stormy weather and crashing waves powerfully symbolise the intense passions that are released within a love triangle where intentional duplicity and the nature of a complex relationship, provoke a vulnerable man into behaviour that's both murderous and self-destructive.

st-shot The distinguished French director Jean Renoir beaches himself on American shores in less than graceful style with this flatly performed melodramatic noir that involves post traumatic stress and infidelity. While Renoir manages to keep the suspense building with character ambiguity he does so at the expense of draining the emotional realism from them.Scott (Robert Ryan), a coastguard officer is haunted by nightmares of a ship sinking he survived. In an attempt to move on he proposes to his girl friend who does not want to rush into things. Riding his horse along the shore one day he encounters Peggy (Joan Bennett), who lives near bye with her blind artist husband, Todd (Charles Bickford). Confused and vulnerable the pair enter into a passionate affair.With the character of Peggy as his linchpin Renoir presents us with an ideal fatale; mysterious beautiful and dangerous. Her ambiguity is key to the suspenseful nature of the film but Joan Bennett is too icily remote and unconvincing in her passion for Scott or Todd turning her feelings on and off like a faucet. Ryan and Bickford for the most part circle each other like wounded animals challenging and looking for an opportunity to strike. Both are so bitter they make it hard to believe they have any love in them.Given it's brief running time (71 min.) and its choppy narrative Woman on the Beach may not be the film Renoir intended. All three wax existential in brief moments of metaphorical intent but the conversation rapidly turns to rage and irrationality much of the time as Renoir employs excessive zooms and a overheated music score to give Woman a B movie style of haphazard excess. The tacked on compromise to salvage this shipwreck makes it only sink deeper.

ackstasis By 1947, Jean Renoir, at least indirectly, wasn't new to the American film noir style. Two years earlier, Fritz Lang had released the first of his two Renoir remakes, 'Scarlet Street (1945),' which was based upon 'La Chienne / The Bitch (1931)' {the second film, 'Human Desire (1954),' was inspired by 'La Bête humaine (1938)'}. 'Scarlet Street' notably starred Joan Bennett in a prominent role, which makes it interesting that, despite allegedly disliking that film, Renoir himself used her in his own Hollywood film noir, 'The Woman on the Beach (1947).' It's a visually-magnificent film, with photography from Leo Tover and Harry Wild (the latter of whom shot 'Murder, My Sweet (1944)' and 'Macao (1952)') that perfectly captures the mystery and eerie calm of the beach-side setting, frequently swathed in gentle clouds of mist that foreshadow the ambiguity and uncertainty of the story that follows. When we first glimpse Joan Bennett on the fog-swathed coast, collecting driftwood at the wreck of a grounded ship, she really does look ghostly and ethereal, a premonition that may or may not be real.Robert Ryan plays Scott, a coastguard who suffers from regular night terrors concerning memories of a war-time naval tragedy, when his ship was presumably torpedoed. His dream sequences are gripping and otherwordly, recalling the excellently surreal work achieved by Renoir in his silent short film, 'The Little Match Girl (1928).' During his nightmares, Scott imagines an underwater romantic liaison, which, before he can get intimate, unexpectedly blows up in his face; this is an apt indication of the events that unfold later in the film. Scott is engaged to marry the pretty Eve (Nan Leslie), but his attention is soon distracted by Peggy (Joan Bennett), the titular "woman on the beach." Peggy is married to Tod (Charles Bickford), a famous blind artist who is still coming to terms with his relatively recent affliction. At just 71 minutes in length, 'Woman on the Beach' feels far too short, the apparent victim of studio interference. Scott is obviously enamoured, and later obsessed, with femme fatale Peggy, in a manner than suggests Walter Neff's fixation with Phyllis Dietrichson, but the motivations behind his actions are inadequately explored and explained.Perhaps as a result of the studio's trimming of scenes, many plot-twists in the film seem somewhat contrived. Scott's extreme determination in proving that Tod is faking blindness feels so incredibly illogical – why, indeed, would Tod even consider such a con? Many wonderful scenes are severely hampered by the story's lack of exposition. In the film's most dramatic scene, amid the choppy waters of the Atlantic, Robert Ryan displays a frighteningly convincing rage that borders on pure psychosis, a quality that Nicholas Ray exploited five years later in 'On Dangerous Ground (1952).' However, because Scott's obsession and emotional transformation had previously been explored so sparsely, the sequence feels, above all else, out of context. The performances are nevertheless solid across the board, with Bickford probably the most impressive. Bennett's character is tantalisingly ambiguous: throughout the film, she slowly reveals herself to be nothing but a greedy tramp, though Scott insists on treating her as a tormented victim of abuse. The ending offers little in the way of resolution, reaffirming the sentiment that perhaps this film isn't all there.

Michael_Elliott Woman on the Beach, The (1947) *** (out of 4) This film features a very interesting story and there are a lot of great moments but at the same time there's a lot of silly and over the top moments and all of the blame has to go towards director Renoir. There's a very good love triangle going on here with a very well done mystery but for some reason Renoir lets the film slip into several over the top moments, which get a few laughs, which certainly wasn't the intent. One problem are the performances by Bennett and Ryan. Both fit their roles very nicely but each have scenes where their characters go so over the top that you've gotta wonder if Renoir was even watching what they were doing. There's also a scene near the end where it seems like Bennett was calling the shots on her own and doesn't know how to act in the scene, which turns out being rather confusing on her characters part. Bickford on the other hand delivers a very fierce and strong performance as the blind man with a temper. He clearly steals the show and acts circles around the other two leads. The film runs 71-minutes and goes by very fast and includes a couple very suspenseful scenes including one where the man wants to know if the husband is really blind and makes him walk on the edge of a cliff. Overall, the film kept me entertained but it's a shame this didn't turn out to be a masterpiece because all the pieces are there but just don't gel as well as they should.