The Woman on the Beach
Director: Jean Renoir
Year Released: 1947
Rating: 1.0
It's probably unfair to give this a rating, since the movie appears to be so diced up by the editors and studio that it - in its 71-minute state - is barely coherent. Robert Ryan - who's been having some bizarre dreams about skeletons at the bottom of the ocean - takes it upon himself to punish a blind painter because he doesn't believe he's blind - which leads to two ghastly scenes where he tries to kill him by (a.) leading him to the edge of a cliff (for the man to fall off) and by (b.) trying to drown him during a choppy storm. The actual point to it all isn't clear - the film tries to make a case that the blind man is actually a malevolent fiend and that Joan Bennett is his slave (though she can realistically get away at any time) - and never gets around to resolving Ryan's mental infirmities, which get brought up throughout the picture.
