The Woman in the Window (1944) review

With his family away on vacay, Assistant Professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) - who teaches Psychology at Gotham College - goes out for drinks with pals, but notices a painting of a woman in a window next door and becomes fascinated by it only for the subject herself to appear beside him: they go back to her place, a hulking man comes in and attacks Wanley but he kills him with a pair of scissors ... and then the two of them have to dispose of the corpse.  While it's just as cold and mechanical as several of Lang's other noirs, to its credit it at least tries to apply logic and reason to the situation, with the gears in Wanley's head constantly turning to figure out what's the right move (and making plenty of mistakes along the way).  It then does the unspeakable with its repugnant "surprise ending": it rug pulls the entire audience, negates anything good that preceded it and wastes a solid performance by Robinson.