Night Without Sleep

This is one of those obscure minor masterpieces that get sorted out for being not very sensational, but it is a highly developed psychological drama and thriller, Gary Merrill makes the most of it, and it is probably his best film. He wakes up five in the morning with a weird feeling of having killed somebody, but he can't remember whom. He tries to reconstruct what happened, he remembers his wife, who went away to Boston for her father's birthday, he remembers his meeting with Linda Darnell, whom he hadn't seen for six years, and he remembers his upsets with his other dame, Lisa Mueller (Hildegard Knef), who scolded him and had every reason to. But it was the Linda Darnell episode that made an impression on him, and it does indeed on the audience as well - this is romance at the highest possible level and the main charm and lasting impact of the film, which will make you want to go over it again, almost immediately, because it is so beautiful and well made, with the composer Gary playing for her his own music and all. It is very noir and hopeless, but the impression of its love affair will leave as lasting an impression on you as it does on poor Gary and Linda Darnell, who was never lovelier.