Eat Drink Man Woman in the Window

 

Though the drink and the chick look delicious
He thinks it's a trick, is suspicious
Take care if a skirt
In her lair starts to flirt
If she's slinky and slick, she's malicious.


 

Joan Bennett offers Dan Duryea a drink in  The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944).

Thousand Eye-Land Dressing

A hotel which is teeming with eyes
Where the bellhops, it seems, are all spies
When that master called Fritz
At long last calls it quits
In farewell, early themes he'll reprise.



The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse) is the last film by Fritz Lang, which he directed in 1960. Title character Dr. Mabuse had appeared in earlier films by Lang back in 1922 and 1933. And compare the title frame from the 1960 film (top) to the frame from Metropolis(above), which Lang directed in 1929. Posted as part of The Late Show, the blogathon of late films.

Everybody Wants to Be Mabuse

You'll find you're a little bit woozy
Each time you see Dr. Mabuse
You're his to control
Mind, body and soul
And the crime you'll commit is a doozy.

David Cairns and Surly Hack


Director Fritz Lang made three films featuring the psychiatrist, mesmerist and criminal mastermind known as Doctor Mabuse: Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (33), and The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960). Rudolph Klein-Rogge (above) portrayed Mabuse in the first two films.

Destiny's Child Custody Battle

Of Fate we're all deathly afraid
'Cause our bed has already been made
And in it we'll lie
Till the minute we die
And the date has been set for the fade.

Bernhard Goetzke as Death, with Lil Dagover in Destiny (Fritz Lang, 1921). The original German title is Der müde Tod, "Weary Death".

Pariah Scary

He's skewed by an inner compulsion
A sinner who's viewed with revulsion
His acts are so hideous
So black and perfidious
The Berliners pursue his expulsion.

David Cairns

Peter Lorre doesn't like the verdict in M (Fritz Lang, 1931).

Anti M

This slasher is killing the kinder
His acts are political tinder
The criminal class
Puts a crimp on his ass
So their cash in the till he can't hinder.


Peter Lorre stars in M (Fritz Lang, 1931). Title by David M Cairns.

Coffee Breakdown

Her fury is sizzling hot
It''ll burn Marvin's criminal blot
When she trots out the java
It's a shot of hot lava
As, in turn, Grahame gives him the pot.


Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin feel The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953). Next week, Lang's German roots and a few of his silent films.

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.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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.

Window Undressing

One look at the lady's reflection
And this schnook gets a fateful erection
He's soon doing time
In a nightmare of crime
As a crook who's afraid of detection.

Edgar G. Robinson and dream girl Joan Bennett, The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944).

A Girl, A Guy and a Prob

All it takes is a stupid misstep  
One mistake that'll ruin your rep
A single hot date
That seemed to go great
Till a wake with a body to schlep.


Joan Bennett and Edward G. Robinson in The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944). Aside from David Cairns, can anyone name the film that this limerick's title is a play on? Come on, film buffs!

Sour Milquetoast

Poor Christopher Cross was a sucker
When kissing a butt he would pucker
Then he fell for a floozy
Who...well, wasn't choosy
Got pissed, took an ice pick and stuck her.


Edward G. Robinson met Joan Bennett on Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street.

Joan of Dark

To make it she's scratched and she's clawed
By apes she's been slapped at and pawed
Bought, bartered and sold,
Her heart's not of gold
No lady, Joan Bennett's a broad.



In the 1940s, Joan Bennett played a string of loose ladies and dark dames, and was a favorite of director Fritz Lang. Here she's a hooker in Lang's Scarlet Street, having her toenails done by milquetoast Edward G. Robinson. Read our earlier rhymes on Joan Bennett. Image source: Shadows and Satin. 

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.

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.