Secret Beyond the Door Man

To protect her the groom has to swear
But their wedding's a gloomy affair
What are vows to the louses
Who espouse killing spouses,
And collect rooms of doom in their lair?


Rosa Rey, Michael Redgrave, Joan Bennett and Natalie Schafer in Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1947).

Secret Beyond the Door Prize

Her new husband has something he's hiding
On this subject their marriage is riding
His mansion is roomy
Plus clammy and gloomy
It's a nuthouse in which they're residing.


Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave share a Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1947). Image source: The Daily Notebook.

Unhinged Beyond the Door

Did he marry his Mrs. for dough?
Since they paired she's suspicious it's so
There's a wing of weird rooms

Where a mystery looms
And she's scared it's a murderer's row.

Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave share a Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1947). Image source: The Daily Notebook. Can't get enough Lang? There's more here.

Burning Down the Spouse

In the basement he's buried it deep
But the secret he's carried won't keep
She searches their house
To learn if her spouse
Is a freak...and she married the creep!



His secret, exploring, she'll learn
By giving the doorknob a turn
But the woe that she'll find
Will blow Joanie's mind
And she might end up stored in an urn.

Joan Bennett finds the Secret Beyond the Door ( Fritz Lang, 1947), a visually dense Freudian update on the Bluebeard story.

The Bluebeard of Crappiness

A newlywed girl and her boy
Should be drooling and fervid with joy
Days filling with pleasure
And thrills beyond measure--
Not ruled by the urge to destroy.


Michael Redgrave and Joan Bennett in Secret Beyond the Door. David "Uxoricidal" Cairns pitched in on the title. Redgrave was cast due to his intense portrayal of a crazed ventriloquist in Dead of Night(1945).

Hinge Benefit

A secret's like locking a door
to a suite of forbidden decor
Through its keyholes we peek,
for what's hidden we seek
Intrigued, we've a need to explore

Surly Hack


You step through completely alone
A portal into the unknown
How will you survive
or get out alive
forgetting to bring your cell phone?!

Norm Knott

Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1948)

Little Boy Bluebeard

This couple is growing estranged      
The trouble is Romeo's changed
He builds recreations        
Of killer locations  

Yes, hubby's a yo-yo, deranged.


Newlywed Michael Redgrave creeps out bride Joan Bennett with his Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1947). Sort of a mash-up of Rebecca and the Bluebeard tale, this might be the most visually dense and subtle film from Hollywood's Freudian fling in the 1940s.     I said visually subtle. Image source: As Cool as a Fruitstand.

Husband and Strife

A whirlwind romance and they wed
But the girl from the man should have fled
She married too soon
And was paired with a loon
Who's so squirelly he fancies her dead.

Michael Redgrave and Joan Bennett in Secret Beyond the Door ( Fritz Lang, 1947). That's right, post Vincent Price my mind is on the Fritz.

A Room with a Boo

Left alone in his horrible home
Wife Joan would through corridors roam
The most frightening space
In this nightmarish place?
In its owner's unfortunate dome.



Joan Bennett seeks the Secret Beyond the Door ( Fritz Lang, 1947). Image source: The Daily Notebook.

Mother, Slay I

His shrine to misogyny's apt
The mind in his noggin has snapped
Though his bride is the bomb,
He despises his mom,
And she finds the montage has her trapped.

Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave in Secret Beyond the Door.

Secret Expirer

About murders this rat reminisces
Not purple and passionate kisses
More pleasing than sex

Is the squeezing of necks 

Most fervently that of his Mrs.

Michael Redgrave feels a compulsion to strangle wife Joan Bennett in Fritz Lang's Freudian nightmare, Secret Beyond the Door ( 1947).

Dangerous When Wed

From the start hubby troubled the bride
Her new partner had something to hide
A twisted heart beat

In each sinister suite...
All apartments where somebody died.


Joan Bennett in Secret Beyond the Door ( Fritz Lang, 1947). Title by best man David Cairns.

His & Hearse

When next you are due to be wed
Run a check on your suitor instead
Look into his past
And the sins he's amassed
Those selected for woo might get dead.


Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave in Fritz Lang's Secret Beyond the Door. Title by the easily engaged David Cairns.

Diary of a Chamber Made

This lunatic's basement is filled
With rooms in which ladies were killed
To the smallest detail
They're installed without fail
Let's assume by the place she ain't thrilled.


Joan Bennett learns Michael Redgrave's Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1947). Redgrave gives a tour of his murder rooms here on YouTube. And our earlier limericking on this delirious damsel-in-distresser is right here on Limerwrecks.

Bride and Doom

You'll be bound to a morbid life mate
Live surrounded by horror and hate
Your bridal bouquet
Will dry and decay
Turn around now before it's too late.


Joan Bennett approaches the altar in Secret Beyond the Door ( Fritz Lang, 1947).

Boudoir and Peace

He would speak of his rooms as "felicitous"
But not deign to explain with with explicitness
How each mate met her fate
To inflate the crime rate
These boudoirs have a certain illicitness.

David Cairns

Michael Redgrave and Joan Bennett in Secret Beyond the Door.

Psy-Co-Habiting

Who can know what another might think
To what low a new lover could sink
From childhood what pain
Runs wild in their brain,
Earning dough for some mother-trained shrink.


Michael Redgrave and Joan Bennett in Secret Beyond the Door (1947), Fritz Lang's late entry in the 1940s Freudian fad. Title by Doctor of Psycho-ology, David Cairns.