Fingers at the Window

Fingers at the Window
Directed by	Charles Lederer
Written by	Rose Caylor Lawrence Bachmann
Produced by	Irving Starr
Starring	Lew Ayres Laraine Day Basil Rathbone
Cinematography	Charles Lawton Jr. Harry Stradling Sr.
Edited by	George Boemler
Music by	Bronislau Kaper
Production company	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	22 April 1942 (1942-04-22)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$320,000
Box office	$548,000

Fingers at the Window is a 1942 mystery film directed by Charles Lederer and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Plot

An axe murderer in Chicago kills six victims. The police, led by Inspector Gallagher with psychiatrist Dr. Immelman consulting, 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.

Later, someone in the shadows counsels a bird shop owner that he must kill dancer Edwina Brown and hands him an axe. The shop owner goes after her as she walks home at night. While walking home after his play closed, actor Oliver Duffy sees the attacker, intervenes and escorts Edwina home. The shop owner tries to get in her window; Oliver keeps watch 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 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 slips of paper with meaningless 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.

Another stranger later takes down a fire axe and tries to get into Edwina's room. Oliver deduces that someone is hypnotizing people to commit each murder. The names of all seven murderers begin with B.

To investigate, Oliver pretends to be schizophrenic to get in the psychiatric hospital where all the arrested men are kept. He eventually breaks in Dr. Immelman's file cabinet and looks 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. Oliver concludes that the mastermind hypnotizing the patients must be a psychiatrist. He escapes, gets to Edwina and takes her to a seminar that will be attended by every local psychiatrist, to see if she knows any of them. She does not, but Santelle is not there.

They go to Santelle's house. After seeing who is calling, Santelle gets his butler to impersonate him in surgical gown and mask. Edwina thinks that she does not know him. As they wait for an "L" train, someone pushes Oliver off the platform; he falls to the street. As he lies, bruised, in the hospital, Edwina reveals that she was engaged to someone named Cesar while living and dancing in Paris. Cesar eventually left her with no word or warning. Both Edwina and Oliver then declare their love for each other.

While Edwina waits outside, Santelle approaches Oliver and gives him an injection. It turns out to be a deadly overdose of insulin. Oliver passes out without saying where Edwina is; 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 gets the police to go to Santelle's house.

Cesar catches Edwina, forces her inside, and reveals his reason for getting his patients to kill the seven men: he is not actually Santelle, but impersonated him to claim his fortune in Chicago when Santelle died in Paris. This was why he left her abruptly. All seven men who were killed had known the real Santelle. When Edwina is dead, no one will know that Cesar is an impersonator. As Cesar is about to kill her, the police arrive. Cesar locks her in a closet while he answers the door. The police are convinced that Oliver is crazy until an officer spots the piece of paper Edwina got from the lunatic on the floor. Cesar shoots at the police to get away, but Inspector Gallagher shoots him dead. Oliver and Edwina are reunited and plan to marry immediately.

Cast

• Lew Ayres as Oliver Duffy
• Laraine Day as Edwina Brown
• Basil Rathbone as Dr. H. Santelle
• Walter Kingsford as Dr. Cromwall
• Miles Mander as Dr. Kurt Immelman
• Charles D. Brown as Inspector Gallagher
• Cliff Clark as Lt. Allison
• James Flavin as Lt. Schaeffer
• Russell Gleason as Ogilvie
• William Tannen as Devlan
• Mark Daniels as Haguey
• Bert Roach as Krum
• Russell Hicks as Dr. Chandley
• Charles Wagenheim as Fred Bixley
• Robert Homans as Officer O'Garrity
• Byron Foulger 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 wrote, "this intended 'chiller' is decidedly soft and lukewarm," whereas Leonard Maltin called it an "Entertaining mystery".

Leslie Halliwell, 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.

External links

• Fingers at the Window at IMDb
• Fingers at the Window at the TCM Movie Database
• Fingers at the Window at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films