"The Woman on the Beach" is a romantic drama with elements of film noir. The main character is Scott Burnett, a Coast Guard officer assigned to a remote coastal location. One day Scott meets a beautiful young woman on the beach, and discovers that she is Peggy, the wife of Tod Butler, a much older man. Tod is a famous painter who is now unable to paint after going blind. Although Scott already has a fiancée, Eve, he finds himself increasingly attracted to Peggy, especially when he discovers that her marriage is not a happy one. She is, however, reluctant to leave her husband, largely because of feelings of guilt. It is never made clear exactly how he became blind, but it appears to be the result of some sort of accident for which Peggy holds herself responsible. Relationships between Scott and Tod are initially friendly, but they become more suspicious of one another after the bond between Scott and Peggy starts to develop. Scott even comes to suspect Tod of feigning blindness in order to increase his hold over Peggy.
This was the last film directed by Jean Renoir in America, and he seems to have had a difficult time making it. The studio, RKO Radio Pictures, were not happy with Renoir's first cut, especially after it was badly received by a preview audience, and he was forced to recut it, and even reshoot some sequences, before they were satisfied. Renoir's initial version seems to be lost, but the film that we have does not always flow easily. A lot is left unexplained, and not just the full history of the relationship between Peggy and Tod. Scott suffers from nightmares involving shipwrecks; these may be connected with some traumatic wartime experience, but this is never made clear and we are left unsure of how these sequences relate to the rest of the film. These nightmares also involve a blonde woman who bears a resemblance to Eve- Peggy is a brunette- but the significance of this is not explained. (Eve tends to drop out of the second half of the film, which is dominated by the Scott-Peggy-Tod triangle).
There are some better things about the film, especially Renoir's striking expressionistic photography of the lonely coastal scenes. It was for this reason that I described the film as having noir elements, even though the plot, a romantic love triangle drama, is not really typical of noir, which more frequently concentrated upon crime and violence. The acting is of a reasonable standard, with the best performance coming from starring Charles Bickford as the dark, conflicted figure of Tod, locked in a love-hate relationship with Peggy. We cannot know what Renoir's finished film would have looked like of the studio had not interfered- as far as I know there is no "director's cut" available- but the film we actually have serves as a reminder that European auteur directors and the Hollywood studio system are not always a good match. At least it is better than Renoir's penultimate American film, the frothy and lightweight "The Diary of a Chambermaid". 6/10.
This was the last film directed by Jean Renoir in America, and he seems to have had a difficult time making it. The studio, RKO Radio Pictures, were not happy with Renoir's first cut, especially after it was badly received by a preview audience, and he was forced to recut it, and even reshoot some sequences, before they were satisfied. Renoir's initial version seems to be lost, but the film that we have does not always flow easily. A lot is left unexplained, and not just the full history of the relationship between Peggy and Tod. Scott suffers from nightmares involving shipwrecks; these may be connected with some traumatic wartime experience, but this is never made clear and we are left unsure of how these sequences relate to the rest of the film. These nightmares also involve a blonde woman who bears a resemblance to Eve- Peggy is a brunette- but the significance of this is not explained. (Eve tends to drop out of the second half of the film, which is dominated by the Scott-Peggy-Tod triangle).
There are some better things about the film, especially Renoir's striking expressionistic photography of the lonely coastal scenes. It was for this reason that I described the film as having noir elements, even though the plot, a romantic love triangle drama, is not really typical of noir, which more frequently concentrated upon crime and violence. The acting is of a reasonable standard, with the best performance coming from starring Charles Bickford as the dark, conflicted figure of Tod, locked in a love-hate relationship with Peggy. We cannot know what Renoir's finished film would have looked like of the studio had not interfered- as far as I know there is no "director's cut" available- but the film we actually have serves as a reminder that European auteur directors and the Hollywood studio system are not always a good match. At least it is better than Renoir's penultimate American film, the frothy and lightweight "The Diary of a Chambermaid". 6/10.