The war years saw Hollywood's leading men unavailable - Clark Gable, James Stewart, and many others, were otherwise occupied. At this point, some of the better character actors stepped up to starring roles they might not otherwise have gotten. The darkness of the war years also did a bit to loosen the grip of the production code by allowing darker plots than would otherwise pass inspection, but the evildoers still had to be punished in the end. This began the trend of "film noir" - related to their predecessors, the precodes, by examining the seedy side of life, but emphasizing the duality of man's nature rather than the sexual angles and the evolving roles of women and men in society as the films of the early 30's tended to do."The Woman in the Window" is a great film noir starring the great Edward G. Robinson as a mild mannered New York City professor. He packs his wife and kids off to the country at the beginning of the summer as was the custom back before the days of air conditioning, and he begins his three month bachelorhood by joining two friends at his private club, one of which is D.A. Frank Lalor (Raymond Massey). Before entering his club, though, he appreciates a painting of a beautiful woman, "the woman in the window". His two friends see him staring, kid him about it, and they proceed to have a conversation in which the D.A. talks about how many cases he sees in which a small wrong step by an ordinarily law-abiding citizen leads to major crime.The rest of the film is basically a demonstration of what the D.A. spoke about when you mix Robinson's mild professor with the actual flirtatious woman in the window (Joan Bennett), add a case of homicide in self-defense under seemingly scandalous circumstances where there is no way to prove self-defense, and finally introduce a seedy blackmailing P.I. (Dan Duryea) into the mix. The film has many twists and turns and you can feel your guts wrenching along with Robinson's as he watches the police come closer and closer to his door with every update he gets from his friend the D.A. who thinks he is just sharing an interesting case with a professor of criminology.The end then takes a sharp turn and totally surprises you.This film was so good that Fritz Lang followed it up the following year with an even better effort - Scarlet Street - with Robinson, Duryea, and Bennett playing similar parts as they did in this film. There's even a painting as a central plot point in this second film as well.The video and audio are terrific quality in this film. My only complaint is the same one I have with most MGM classic releases - absolutely no extras whatsoever. All you have are scene selections and alternate language selections. Highly recommended anyways, but be sure you follow it up by watching "Scarlet Street".