Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) is no criminal...at least, he wasn't until he met THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW. With his wife and kids out of town, the chaste professor engages in an innocent flirtation with a chance acquaintance (Joan Bennett) and inadvertently commits a shocking crime. But as the cunning D.A. (Raymond Massey) gets closer and closer to identifying the killer, Wanley finds he's more and more willing to resort to desperate measures to avoid being caught.