A film noir from 1947 starring Robert Ryan, Joan Bennett & Charles Bickford. A coast guard officer is tormented, often taking long horse rides on a beach near his command station to whittle away his dire thoughts but one day he comes across a woman whiling her day away in front of a beached ship. It turns out she is the wife of an esteemed artist (who's now blind) who is stuck in a loveless, abusive marriage which intrigues the military man (even though he is promised to another). He believes the artist's impairment is a front which he tries to use to his advantage to take the unhappy woman away from him. A misguided desire has him at the point where he calls off his marriage & to make plans to take the hated husband on an ill fated boat ride during a storm where he hopes to make his fateful move. The last American film by Jean Renoir (The Rules of the Game/The Southerner) was hampered by a poor test audience & months of reshoots which by the looks of the final product feels about right since it essentially feels like a compromised classic but still deserves some attention just by the justified notoriety of the filmmaker.
Review of The Woman on the Beach
