A.J Finn’s best-selling novel The Woman In The Window inspired by old classic films
FILM noir is set to attract a new wave of young fans, thanks to best-selling book of the moment about a woman trapped in a web of her own fears.
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FILM noir is set to attract a new wave of young fans, thanks to best-selling book of the moment about a woman trapped in a web of her own fears.
The new suspense thriller The Woman In The Window refers directly to certain old movies that have probably been gathering dust in your DVD cabinet. And quite wrongly so, because these old flicks are classics of their kind.
To mention just a few, there is Gaslight made in 1944 and starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, Vertigo (1958) with James Stewart and Kim Novak, and Billy Wilder films like Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend.
The unbeatable choice for a rainy Sunday afternoon has to be Rear Window, where a temporarily wheelchair-bound photographer (James Stewart again) and his glam girlfriend (Grace Kelly) spy on their neighbours and become convinced a murder has been perpetrated by one of them.
Suspenseful or menacing films like these, collectively known as film noir, are directly referenced throughout A.J. Finn’s The Woman In the Window, the first debut novel to top the New York Times bestseller list and stay there for three weeks.
Finn’s novel borrows heavily from Hitchcock’s Rear Window, in which the photographer is stuck at home with a broken leg. In The Woman in the Window, main protagonist Dr Anna Fox is trapped in her home by severe agoraphobia triggered by a recent trauma.
Because she is mentally unable to leave her home, Fox tries to stay connected with the world by scanning her neighbours’ windows with her trusty Nikon.
Fox becomes sure she has witnessed a gruesome murder in the house across the park from her home in a gentrified part of Harlem in New York, and the second half of the book relates Fox’s nightmarish attempts to convince someone, anyone, that she’s not mad and she knows
what she saw.
Fox has a bad habit of calming her shattered nerves with a glass or seven of red, a random scoop of prescribed medications, and a pile of film noir DVDs.
Depending on her mood — anxiety, self doubt, desperation or terror — Fox chooses from films such as Rififi, Laura, The Fallen Idol, The 39 Steps, The Big Clock, Dark Passage, Wait Until Dark, and Frantic.
Given that these films are an integral part of the book, The Woman In the Window is highly likely to trigger a new wave of interest in legendary directors such as Wilder and Fritz Lang.
Even the name of the book is heavy with celluloid history. A film of the same name, directed by Lang, came out in 1944 with the rumple-faced star of noir, Edward G. Robinson.
Finn’s book is about to add to the history of film noir in a very real way. Production will soon begin on a Fox movie version of the book, produced by Academy Award-winning Scott Rudin. As for who will play the 38-year-old Dr Fox, watch this space.
Adding to the piquancy surrounding the book is the fact A.J. Finn is a pseudonym for Daniel Mallory, a former executive editor of the very firm that won the fierce battle between publishing houses for the rights to the book. Mallory resigned from his job at HarperCollins just weeks ago, and is now a full-time author with his second book almost finished.
It’s a detective thriller set in San Francisco, the city synonymous with writer Dashiell Hammett’s laconic private detective, Sam Spade.
As to who he would favour for the role of Dr Fox, Mallory diplomatically declines to
be drawn. “I will say (that) had the movie been made in the ‘50s, I would have liked to have seen Gene Tierney cast in it,” he says.
Would he have considered Audrey Hepburn?
“Yes, because if you watch Wait Until Dark, she’s got some spunk,” he says.
For those who are now planning to dive into film noir, that’s another classic to add to the list.
Mallory says he could not have written the book without overcoming bipolar disorder.
His love of film noir began in childhood when he spent many afternoons at an art-house cinema.