Preceded by Short Wild Night in El Reno (George Kuchar, USA, 1977). Shot in El Reno, Oklahoma, this is in fact a film of the weather, which, by virtue of Kuchar's editing, provides all the clichés of Hollywood melodrama/film noir and a narrative without actors. (8 mins, Color, 16mm, From Canyon Cinema) "There are certain things in it I liked," Fritz Lang recalled about House by the River, "trick photography-and I remember something with a corpse floating in the water...." Louis Hayward, in the clutch with his wife's maid, accidentally murders the woman; all attempts to cover up the crime ricochet, naturally. This tale of guilt, murder and retribution is virtually an unknown film; William K. Everson writes, "House by the River is about the last stand of the old Lang: stark, nightmarish, abrasively anti-social in its parade of bickering, petty small-town types, and like most of his films, existing in its own little totally studio-created world, without any hint of fresh air or real exteriors. It must represent an extreme in the physically black entries in the film noir genre."