House by the River

House by the River centres on Stephen Byrne, a wealthy writer living beside a river. When he makes advances toward the household maid, Emily Gaunt, and she resists, he kills her. He then turns to his brother John for help in disposing of the body, and the two sink it in the water. Once the corpse surfaces and the police take charge of it, Stephen works to direct suspicion onto John, driven by long-standing resentment of his brother. His wife Marjorie is drawn into the consequences of his behaviour as well.

The film was directed by Fritz Lang, working from a screenplay by Mel Dinelli and produced by Howard Welsch for Republic Pictures and Fidelity Pictures Corporation. It runs 88 minutes and belongs to the crime, drama and thriller genres. It is the eighteenth of the twenty-four films Lang directed in chronological order, coming after Secret Beyond the Door and before Rancho Notorious. Louis Hayward plays Stephen, with Jane Wyatt as Marjorie, Lee Bowman as John, Dorothy Patrick as Emily Gaunt, Ann Shoemaker as Mrs. Ambrose and Jody Gilbert as Flora Bantam.

The film holds a rating of 7 out of 10 on IMDb from around 4,900 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.8 out of 10 from roughly 121 votes, indicating a modest but settled following. A critics' rating of 6.7 out of 10 from 15 reviews places it close to the audience scores.