Noite Após Noite

"Night Unto Night" was made in 1947 and was not released until 1949. That is a very bad sign...a sign that the studio thought they had a bomb on their hands. While I would not call this one a bomb, it certainly could have been a lot better...and it's a shame because the acting is really nice in this one...particularly by Ronald Reagan in the lead.

When the film begins, John (Reagan) moves to the Florida coast and finds a home to rent. A widow (Viveca Linfors) wants to leave her home...and not for the usual reasons. She thinks the place is haunted and she hears her dead husband's voice there! John thinks this is nutty but is a gentle man and treats her well despite her odd delusion. Eventually the pair fall in love...but he has a secret he broods over...he has epilepsy.

The acting and production values are really nice in this one but the film acted like epilepsy is some sort of death sentence...or at least a life destroyer! It certainly isn't and handling the illness this way seemed pretty crass and silly. Overall, some nice moments but the plot just didn't make a lot of sense...and marrying a man who occasionally goes blank (which happens with many types of seizures) is NOT something that destroys your life or makes you destined to be a lonely recluse! The writing sinks this one....and it's a shame as Reagan is at his best in this one. And, I wonder how epileptics felt when they watched this film...as if they were somehow destined for hollow lives because of the disorder!

A curious, brooding drama with metaphysical airs, Night Unto Night holds interest by its very oddity (and to some extent as an early directorial effort by Don Siegel). It's set in pre-boom, primitive Florida near the Everglades and takes its redemptive close during a purging hurricane, along the way touching on transcendent themes - though it seems to confuse spirituality with spiritualism. These are its dramatis personae:

. Ronald Reagan plays a biochemist (!) come to coastal Florida seeking a simple, reclusive life; he's been diagnosed with epilepsy and, man of science or not, he views his condition as a mysterious and terrible curse. So he rents a gloomy old pile of a house from a young widow where he sets up a laboratory to fiddle with his molds and spores. He's a disturbed, perhaps suicidal man, but, Kings Row notwithstanding, Reagan is an actor who leaves the impression of never having been troubled a day in his life.

. Viveca Lindfors is the widow, who must vacate the house because in it she keeps hearing the voice of her dead husband, whose boat was torpedoed just offshore. Lindfors was imported to Hollywood in an attempt to recreate the mystique of Ingrid Bergman, whom she resembled in voice and visage, but the imposture never quite worked. Still, she's as good here as she ever was and gives a glimpse into the thinking that brought her from Sweden.

. Broderick Crawford is a friend and neighbor. In a drastic stretch, he plays a painter who earns his living doing commercial art but saves his talent for vast murals in what looks like the Socialist-realism school. Nonetheless, he serves as the spokesman for faith, which he carries like a chip on his shoulder, waylaying the scientists and psychiatrists he meets with harangues about their puny rationalism.

. Osa Mussen, though a Dane not a Swede, plays Lindfors' twisted sister, a spiteful hedonist who throws herself at Reagan and does not suffer rebuff kindly. She drinks too much and ignites the volatile gases of the plot's alchemy.

The story, from a novel by Philip Wylie (whose 15 minutes of notoriety would come in the mid-1950s with his book Generation of Vipers), has a reach which far exceeds its grasp. While it does hold interest - thanks chiefly to Siegel's shifting but steady pace - it raises questions which it does not bother to (or cannot) resolve. Too many of its strands (the spirit of the dead man, the murderous enmity between the sisters, Crawford's ill-packed intellectual baggage) start to flap in the winds of the concluding hurricane and fly off, never to be seen again. At the end, all that we're left with of the ineffable is plain old guy-meets-gal chemistry.

Someone missed the boat here, but I'm not sure where it all went wrong. Ronald Reagan, Viveca Lindfors, Broderick Crawford, Rosemary DeCamp and Osa Massen star in "Night Unto Night," a 1949 psychological drama directed by Don Siegel.

The story concerns a scientist, John Galen (Reagan) who rents a house in South Florida owned by a widow, Ann (Lindfors) who believes she hears her husband's voice. She continues to mourn her husband and can't embrace life; Galen has been told he has epilepsy and has taken the house to work and try to deal with his situation.

Filmed mostly on sets, despite the beautiful cinematography, a lot of scenes look fake. The photography does give the film a brooding atmosphere.

There are some interesting metaphysical, "today" ideas tossed around in the script, but the dialogue is pretentious, not at all like normal people speak. Also, epilepsy here seems to be treated as almost a death sentence or at least a communicable disease. Perhaps back in 1949 that's how it was viewed.

Reagan, a pleasant actor, didn't have a great range and was much better in comedy. He seems miscast here, and the role didn't play to his main assets, which were charm and a genial presence.

Viveca Lindfors was brought over from Sweden as the next Ingrid Bergman; it came as a surprise when husband Don Siegel made a name for himself when he directed "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" when she was supposed to be the star. Despite being beautiful and a wonderful actress, she never made it to the top tier. The actresses who were part of the foreign influx post-war: Alida Valli, Valentina Cortese, Maria Schell, Hildegarde Knef, Mai Zetterling -- all met similar fates. Of all of them, Lindfors was the only one who stayed in America and worked, in film, television, and on the stage - until her death in 1995.

A bizarre film, with spirited performances by Lillian Yarbo, Rosemary DeCamp, Osa Massen, and Broderick Crawford.

I was a young teenager when this film came out. I couldn't recognize a set from the real outdoors and, of course, knew nothing about plot and character development, pacing, conflict resolution, etc. But now, viewing it with a more critical eye I can see its weaknesses. Still I need to make one comment. In the film there is a romantic interlude that takes place at night on the beach. It culminates in a long, lingering kiss. For some reason the technicians, especially the lighting technicians, took a great deal of time setting up the scene. The amount of time and effort even became part of what little lore remains about the picture. Well, to a young, impressionable lad, that was my first sense of the warmth of romance in films. Before this, my only interest were comedies and adventures. Now I sensed their potential for romance--and I liked it.

Stunning photography and Don Siegel's direction make the most of an unusual overly melodramatic story starring Ronald Reagan as a scientist with epilepsy who goes to south Florida on doctor's orders and meets a young woman, (Viveca Lindfors) recently widowed, who is haunted by the voice of her dead husband. Reagan rents her slightly dilapidated beach mansion and experiences several epileptic episodes, but tries his best to keep his condition a secret. Broderick Crawford's role as an artist who lives close by verges on annoying as he goes on and on about art and life. Ossa Massen gives the film a boost as Lindfor's scheming, jealous sister who tries seducing Reagan and later drunkenly blurts out his secret when she realizes that she can't have him. The concluding hurricane arrives just in time, with all the main characters assembled for dinner in the creaky old mansion, and Reagan pushed to verge of suicide by the shame of his medical condition, while Lindfors begs him to reconsider.