With Easter coming up,I started looking for DVDs that I could watch with my dad during the holidays. Reading an old issue of British film mag Empire,I found a review for a Film Noir from a pre-Horror Hammer studio that DVD company Network had put out,which led to me swimming across the lake.View on the film:Whilst they have given much smaller titles great transfers,here Network sadly miss the mark,with the outdoor scenes having a large amount of grain,and the audio needing the volume raised. Swimming just a few years before assistant director Jimmy Sangster & producer Anthony Hinds to shore, writer/director Ken Hughes & cinematographer Walter J. Harvey plant some of the stylisation that was to come, via the speedboat run across the lake having an impending doom atmosphere, and the high walls of the Forrest house giving it the appearance of a haunted mansion.Adapting his own book, Ken (future maker of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!) Hughes dips into pulpy Noir unease,as tempting dame Carol Forrest gets lone writer Mark Kendrick to write their own murder-mystery. Going across in 65 min, the limitations of time lead to the ending feeling clipped,and unfulfilled. Headlined by the glamour of US actors Alex Nicol and Hillary Brooke, Sid James takes the wheel with a great performance as Beverly Forrest,that casts a cynical view at the house across the lake.

Another excellent VCI DVD features the 1954 "House Across the Lake" (or "Heat Wave"), in which Sidney James gives one of his best dramatic performances, thanks no doubt to the astute direction of Ken Hughes.Ken Hughes has adapted his own 1952 novel, "High Wray" (sic - the name of the Forrest mansion or "house"), and skilfully used his real locations and studio sets to convey enough noir atmosphere to overcome the somewhat acute shortage of actual action. Of course, the rest of the players led by Hillary Brooke and super-attractive Susan Stephen (with effective cameos by Paul Carpenter - of all people! - and Peter Illing) also help no end. The central character, "Mark Kendrick:", is played by Alex Nicol as a bit of a no-hoper, but that's exactly what his persona is supposed to be, so I guess we can't complain on that score!

***SPOILERS*** Drowning his troubles in a bottle of scotch at the British Lake Windermere Yacht Club American writer Mark Kendrick, Alex Nicol, spills his guts out to the person, who for the time being shall remain nameless, he meets there about what a fool he was to get involved with icy blond Carol Forrest, Hillary Brooke. It was Carol who manipulated him into doing what he did for her own selfish and murderous interests. That for him to be a pasty in her plans to off her husband Beverely Forrest, Sidney James, and then be left holding the bag as she checked out on Mark with pianist Vincent Gordon,Paul Carpenter.This nightmare started of for Mark when he was invited to a party thrown by Carol to help ferry with his motor boat her guests back to shore after it was discovered that the boat that took them there was out of gas. It was later that Mark took the gas-tank in being set up to whack Beverely while on a fishing trip at lake Windermear planned by Carol. What really set Carol off was the discovery that her old man, who knew she only married him for his money, was going to cut her out of his will and thus out of the lifestyle she's been so used to living. Also her step-daughter Andrea, Susan Stephen, saw through her and was also doing everything possible to get her dad Beverely to divorce Carol before she did him him for good.****SPOILERS**** Not realizing that he was being set up Mark together with Carol and Beverly went out on the lake fishing in pea soup thick fog when by avoiding another boat ended up knocking Beverly off the control or watch booth where he busted up his skull and landed unconscious on the deck below. With his back turned and keeping his eye on the steering wheel Carol pushed the unconscious Beverly overboard where he ends up drowning. With Carol who claimed to be in love with him now dumping Mark for the piano player, whom he detested, he just about had all he could take from her and decided to do the right thing. And with that Mark decides to spill the beans of what he did in him being an accomplice, or better yet pasty, in Beverely's murder of her husband. And the person whom he spilled the beans to, as well as buying him a couple of drinks, is the police detective on the case who's been hounding him all throughout the entire movie Inspt.Maclennan, Alan Wheatley.

In 1950, American producer Robert Lippert formed a business alliance with Hammer studios. Under the agreement, Lippert would provide American acting talent - frequently shop-worn stars or just supporting actors who fancied a profitable trip out of the country - while Hammer would supply the rest of the cast and the production facilities. Together they would split the profits. Famous for his concern with the bottom line, Lippert produced over 140 films between 1946 and 1955, characteristically genre pieces such as I Shot Jesse James or Rocketship XM. For the British deal, most of the films were noir-ish thrillers - and include this title.Sidney James, a regular in this run of productions, appears in House Across The Lake. He plays successfully against type for once, as a millionaire in possession of a straying wife. Directed by Ken Hughes from his own novel, and who a year later also directed another highlight of James' career in Joe Macbeth (1955), as well as later Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) this taut, entirely successful noir thriller is one of the highlights of the Lippert-Hammer noir series (another is The Glass Cage - both available on DVD). A down-and-out writer (Alex Nichol) is invited across the lake to a rich household where he is naturally soon ensnared by a cunning fatale, leading to a waterborne death and inevitable double cross. Although the lure of sex is not quite as explicit as in The Flanagan Boy, which also appears as part of the Hammer series now reissued, House Across The Lake still manages to suggest perfectly satisfactorily the moral quagmire into which the urges of men lead them as well as an effective noir universe, which includes an extended flashback and, that archetypal device, the rueful voice-over. Recommended.