''Fingers at the Window'' is a 1942 mystery film directed by

Charles Lederer Charles Davies Lederer (December 31, 1910 – March 5, 1976) was an American screenwriter and film director. He was born into a theatrical family in New York, and after his parents divorced, was raised in California by his aunt, Marion Davies, ...

and released by

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...

Plot

An axe murderer in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

has already killed six victims. The police, led by Inspector Gallagher with psychiatrist Dr. Immelman consulting, have arrested a different man for each crime, but all of them are impervious to interrogation, lost in a state of paranoid schizophrenia. All are institutionalized. A mysterious figure in the shadows counsels a seventh man, a seemingly harmless bird shop owner, that he must kill a dancer named Edwina Brown ( Laraine Day), because she is his enemy and has ruined his life. He hands him an axe, and the man goes after her as she walks home at night. Actor Oliver Duffy (

Lew Ayres Lewis Frederick Ayres III (December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996) was an American actor whose film and television career spanned 65 years. He is best known for starring as German soldier Paul Bäumer in the film ''All Quiet on the Western Fro ...

) is walking home after his play has closed, and sees the man shadowing her; he intervenes and escorts her home. The man with the axe tries to get in her window; Oliver keeps watch on the fire escape outside her window all night, preventing another attempt near dawn. The next day, Oliver takes measures for Edwina's safety as she returns from work, sending a taxi (with her cat in it) to take her home, and arranging a dummy figure in her bed while they wait in the other room. The bird-shop owner gets in the window and attacks the dummy with the axe; they raise the alarm, and he is captured. At the police station, he too is unreachable, obsessively rearranging little slips of paper with meaningless writing (Oliver later recognizes it as mirror writing) on it. Oliver gives one of these to Edwina as a souvenir, and the police put her up in a hotel for the night. When another stranger takes down the fire axe and tries to get into Edwina's room to kill her, Oliver deduces that the crimes are not random. He believes that someone is hypnotizing different people to commit each murder, but his far-fetched hypothesis leaves the police and Edwina skeptical. Inspector Gallagher says the "mastermind" theory is hackneyed, though he does let drop the fact that the names of all seven men who did the murders begin with B. Edwina lived and danced in Paris, and has some secret connected with her time there that she refuses to talk about, but she alleges that there would be no reason for anyone to want to kill her. Oliver goes to the psychiatric hospital where all the arrested men are kept, and pretends to be schizophrenic in order to get in and investigate. He delights Dr. Immelman with his paranoid act, which gives him scope to break into his file cabinet and look under the "B"s. All seven men who did the axe murders are there, in order, as patients of another psychiatrist at the hospital, Dr. Santelle (

Basil Rathbone Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was a South African-born English actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume ...

). Oliver concludes that the mastermind who is hypnotizing the patients to murder must he a psychiatrist. He escapes, gets to Edwina and takes her to a seminar that will be attended by every psychiatrist in the city, to see if she knows any of them. She does not, but Dr. Santelle is not there. They go to his house, and when he sees who is calling, he gets his butler to impersonate him in surgical gown and mask. Edwina thinks she does not know him. As they wait for an "L" (elevated) train, someone pushes Oliver off the platform; he manages to drop through the ties and fall to the street. As he lies, bruised but not seriously hurt, in the hospital, Edwina finally tells him her awful secret: she was engaged to a man named Cesar in Paris, he suddenly left her with no word or warning, and she thought being jilted made her seem undesirable. He pooh-poohs this, and they declare their love. Edwina goes to wait outside while Oliver rests, and a doctor comes in and gives him an injection. It turns out to be Dr. Santelle, who explains that he has given Oliver an overdose of insulin and he will soon die, so he might as well tell him where Edwina is. Oliver passes out without doing so; as Santelle leaves, Edwina spots him and recognizes him as Cesar. She follows him. Oliver knocks over a pitcher, a nurse investigates and a doctor saves him with a glucose injection. Oliver manages to get the police to go to Dr. Santelle's house, though they think he is crazy and they are saving Santelle from him. Santelle catches Edwina and forces her inside, where he reveals his reason for getting his patients to kill the seven men: he is not actually Santelle, but impersonated him to claim his large inheritance in Chicago when Santelle died in Paris. This was why he left her so abruptly. All seven men who were killed had known the real Santelle; When Edwina, who knows he's really Cesar, is dead, no one will know he is an impersonator. As he is about to kill her, the police arrive, and he locks her in a closet while he answers the door. The police are convinced that Oliver is crazy until one of them spots the piece of paper Edwina had got from the lunatic on the floor. "Santelle" shoots at the police in an attempt to get away, and Gallagher shoots him dead. Oliver and Edwina are happily reunited and plan to marry immediately.

Cast

as Oliver Duffy * Laraine Day as Edwina Brown *

as Dr. H. Santelle *

Walter Kingsford Walter Kingsford (born Walter Pearce; 20 September 1882 – 7 February 1958) was an English stage, film and television actor. Early years Kingsford was born in Redhill, Surrey, England. Career Kingsford began his acting career on the Lo ...

as Dr. Cromwall *

Miles Mander Miles Mander (born Lionel Henry Mander; 14 May 1888 – 8 February 1946), was an English character actor of the early Hollywood cinema, also a film director and producer, and a playwright and novelist. He was sometimes credited as Luther Mile ...

as Dr. Kurt Immelman *

Charles D. Brown Charles D. Brown (July 1, 1887 – November 25, 1948) was an American stage and film actor. Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Brown wrote and directed a single short film in 1914. As an actor, he appeared in more than 100 films, stretching fro ...

as Inspector Gallagher *

Cliff Clark Cliff Clark (June 10, 1889 – February 8, 1953) was an American actor. He entered the film business in 1937 after a substantial stage career and appeared in over 200 Hollywood films. In the last years of his life, he also played in a numb ...

as Lt. Allison *

James Flavin James William Flavin Jr. (May 14, 1906 – April 23, 1976) was an American character actor whose career lasted for nearly half a century. Early life The son of a hotel waiter of Canadian-English descent,Flavin's obituary, distributed by United ...

as Lt. Schaeffer *

Russell Gleason Russell Gleason (February 6, 1908 – December 25, 1945) was an American actor who began his career at the very beginning of the talking film era. Born into an acting family, one of his earliest roles was in the 1930 classic film, ''All Quiet on ...

as Ogilvie *

William Tannen William Tannen (November 17, 1911 – December 2, 1976) was an American actor originally from New York City, who was best known for his role of Deputy Hal Norton in fifty-six episodes from 1956 to 1958 of the ABC/Desilu western television ser ...

as Devlan * Mark Daniels as Haguey *

Bert Roach Egbert "Bert" Roach (August 21, 1891 – February 16, 1971) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 320 films between 1914 and 1951. He was born in Washington, D.C., and died in Los Angeles, California, age 79. Selected filmogr ...

as Krum *

Russell Hicks Edward Russell Hicks (June 4, 1895 – June 1, 1957) was an American film character actor. Hicks was born in 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army in France. He later became a lieutenant Colonel in the Cali ...

as Dr. Chandley *

Charles Wagenheim Charles Wagenheim (February 21, 1896 – March 6, 1979) was an American actor who appeared in over 250 films. On television, Wagenheim appeared in an episode of ''Barnaby Jones'' titled "The Murdering Class", portraying a cemetery groundskeeper ...

as Fred Bixley * Robert Homans as Officer O'Garrity *

Byron Foulger Byron Kay Foulger (August 27, 1898 – April 4, 1970) was an American character actor who over a 50-year career performed in hundreds of stage, film, and television productions. Early years Born in Ogden, Utah, Byron was the second of four ...

as Bird Man (uncredited)

Reception

Box office

The film made $288,000 in the US and Canada and $260,000 elsewhere, making a profit of $29,000.

Critical

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote, "this intended 'chiller' is decidedly soft and lukewarm," whereas

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...

called it an "Entertaining mystery".

Leslie Halliwell Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...

, in the 7th. Edition of his famous Film Guide, mistakenly mis-described Basil Rathbone's character as a "Stage magician" who "Hypnotises lunatics". He called it "Slow- starting"; a film which "Never achieves top gear", on page 347.

References

External links

*
''Fingers at the Window''
at

TCMDB Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of A ...

* * {{Charles Lederer 1942 films 1942 crime drama films 1940s mystery drama films 1942 directorial debut films American black-and-white films American crime drama films American mystery drama films Films directed by Charles Lederer Films scored by Bronisław Kaper Films set in Chicago Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films