User Reviews

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.

I agree with the reviewer who found Charles Bickford's performance as the blind painter as the most compelling and best done. But then, Tod, the artist, is the only one of the three main characters who motivations and personality are clear. His much younger, beautiful wife, played by attractive brunette Joan Bennett, is held captive by him in an emotionally and physically abusive way. At the same time, she finds herself powerless to leave him, though she finds the psychologically injured Navy vet Robert Ryan, who dreams of walking underwater toward a beautiful sea nymph who resembles her, very attractive.

Ryan's character is the biggest puzzle. We can perhaps understand the young wife's clinging to her aging, blind husband out of guilt. After all, it was she who apparently severed his optic nerve during a drunken argument some time ago, though how she managed this without a scalpel is unclear. There are no marks on the painter's face, leaving one to wonder if the cause of blindness is not psychological, or indeed metaphorical. But Ryan's murderous stupidity when he twice comes close to killing the blind painter are only pardonable under the assumption that Ryan is so stress inflicted from his war experiences that he is innocent of even a murder attempt. I didn't buy it, and nor do I see how the movie's conclusion begins to resolve Ryan's obvious mental issues.

***SPOILERS*** Shell shocked as well as water logged navy man Let. Scott Brunnet, Robert Ryan, has never gotten over his experience in WWII when his ship was hit by a German undersea mine and sank. Trying to get his head together Scott in charge of a Coast Guard station on the Atlantic coast takes daily rides along the beach on his horse and one day runs into Peggy, Joan Bennett, picking up woods from an abandoned ship wreck. During a friendly talk with her Peggy, as if she were psychic, has the surprised Scott analyzed down to the tee about his past and the hang-ups he developed from his WWII experiences.

Invited into Peggy's home Scott finds out, when he shows up unexpectedly, that her husband Tod, Charles Brickford, is a world renowned artist as well as being blind. Tod takes an immediate liking to Scott almost inviting him to stay overnight even though he has to report back to his Coast Guard station within the hour. It's then that the film takes on an almost surreal look with Scott becoming so obsessed with Peggy that he virtually leaves his totally crazy about him girlfriend Eve,Nan Laslie, at the altar and falls crazily in love with Peggy, a married woman.

The relationship between Peggy and Tod is by far the most interesting element in the film with her feeling guilty for the condition that he found himself in. We, and Scott, find out from Peggy that she go into a drunken fight with Tod and broke a bottle over his head resulting in him ending up blind. It's the fact of Tod's blindness that Peggy stayed and put up with his abuse of her feeling guilty that she took away the one love that he had in the world; eyes to both see and paint with.

The rest of the film has Scott and Tod play this weird game of chicken with Scott trying to prove that Tod isn't really blind in order to free Peggy from his clutches and keep her all for himself. Scott's actions are so outrageous that he almost has Tod killed twice in the film, by falling off a cliff and drowning in an Alantic storm, the second time with Scott almost getting killed along with.

Tod soon realizes that it's his paintings that has him going somewhat insane with his obsessive actions towards both them and Peggy and finally decides to burn them in order to set himself and Peggy free. Being blind Tod in trying to set the painting on fire sets his and Peggy's house on fire as well leaving himself homeless and penniless with only the clothes, and his car, on his back. The film ends with Peggy realizing that Tod needs her more then ever leaves Scott standard on the beach, watching her and Tod's house burn to a crisps, and agree to drive back with Tod to New York to start a new life. As for Scott we can assume that he'll now go back to Eve whom he promised to marry earlier in the movie, that's if she'll be willing to take him back in the first place.

What an inept and muddled mess this film is. The setup is interesting enough: While out riding his horse, a shell-shocked Coast Guard Lieutenant on the cusp of marriage stumbles upon a femme fatal out gathering firewood near the beached hulk of a ship. He's immediately smitten. He escorts her home (on the pretense of carrying her firewood) where he also meets her blind artist husband.

Having fallen hard for the femme fatal (as you would, of course) he sets about trying to prove that her husband isn't blind at all. In the process, he almost kills him. Oops. Turns out he was wrong about the old guy faking it. No hard feelings, though. After that, the blind artist and the lieutenant become best buddies. Until the next time the Lieutenant tries to kill him, anyway. (A fishing trip in a typhoon goes badly; you'll just have to see it for yourself.)

Oh, and our lovelorn lieutenant takes a quick 60 seconds to dump his fiancee (lucky break for her!).

Everyone's motivations and goals (with the exception of the fiancee) keep shifting so that all the characters seem either erratic or just insane--it's hard to tell. They frequently declare their mercurial states of mind: "Let's face it, I'm not well!" being my favorite. But close runners-up were, "I'm a tramp!" and "Those paintings are my eyes!"

The dialogue and the score are frequently so inept as to be laughable. I would almost start to believe this movie for about five minutes at a stretch before some freshly idiotic event or line would cause me to burst out laughing.

*Nothing* in this film is to be believed, starting with the tragic accident that supposedly blinded the painter. We're told the femme fatal threw a drinking glass in his face. Somehow, this resulted in the optic nerves (to both eyes, no less) being severed, without leaving a mark on him.

What . . . ?

No wonder the good lieutenant thought he was faking it; I wouldn't buy that story either! Plus, the actor playing the blind artist seems to bustle around the film's sets (whether he's at home, on the beach, or at the coast guard station) as if he still had 20/20.

Speaking of unbelievable, I'm stunned that there are people here rating it as some kind of masterpiece--no doubt because it was directed by Jean Renoir and has a couple of surreal dream sequences.

They're not bad (the dream scenes), but they're not all that good either. And certainly not enough to save this shipwreck. Nor is a quick cameo by Granny Clampett.

Renoir does noir. (I couldn't resist.) This review contains minor spoilers.

In your average noir, the set-up of older man, young, beautiful wife, and younger lover would have gone in a predictable direction. In "The Woman on the Beach," the filmmakers are trying for something more symbolic, which unfortunately doesn't quite work. While the plot is intriguing, the dialogue is stilted and, at times, laughable.

Every time Joan Bennett appeared, I kept thinking of the matronly Mrs. Collins from "Dark Shadows." I didn't find her the least convincing as the female lead. To me, she's definitely femme, but not in the least fatale. (To her credit, she does have a very nice laugh.)

There are times in the story when the police would most certainly have been called in. And, at least part of the resolution of the story was predictable.

On the other hand, I thought the relationship between Robert Ryan and Charles Bickford showed the ridiculous lengths to which men fighting over a woman will go, and their interactions were the best part of the film. While it doesn't quite work, "The Woman on the Beach" is worth seeing if only because of Robert Ryan and Charles Bickford, and because it was Renoir's last American film.

Just a note that I have since seen Joan Bennett in "Scarlet Street" and "The Reckless Moment" and I take back everything I said about her above. She was awesome!