The Big Night

As previous reviewer wrote, saw this on TCM and the sound was terrible. Good story in need of a cleanup. I like hearing dialogue.

The story here is revenge, more real-life based, a 1950's version of the crime of passion. A teenager's good-hearted father is beaten to a pulp by a gangster, so the kid invades the streets to get some payback. The father's not worried about the floor-wiping, which leads to a mystery behind the teen's mother, who skipped out on the family long ago, and a woman the father knows who has committed suicide.

Seeing this film, there's not much in terms of plot, but there are some notable scenes, particularly when the kid hears a beautiful night-club singer, becomes entranced, gets a chance to meet her on the street, and tells her how beautiful she is. Even though she's, you know,

black. The pain in the singer's face rends the poor kid, who was transported by her voice, but can't get beyond her skin color.

This film also has one of THE great lines ever in any film noir or any movie period, at least concerning the tragedy between a man and a woman, when there is love involved. There are no words more powerful or poignant, especially for a man who loves a woman beyond reason, who knows he has lost the love of his life. Unable to move on, to love or marry another woman after that one woman has destroyed him, and in fact still very much in love with his destroyer,

Preston Foster tells his son, "Sometimes a man loves one woman in the whole world. If she turns out to be the wrong one, well...that's just tough." Truly, the heart of noir is not blackness, but the white-hot scars of passion.

Uneven film that at times seems to drift. Still, there are genuinely compelling moments, as when burly dad LeMaine (Foster, in a fine performance) meekly submits to a brutal cane lashing that had me cringing. Why he's submitting remains a puzzle until the end. Because of the beating, Dad's insecure son George (Barrymore Jr.) spends the movie's remainder trying to avenge his father.

Beneath the revenge narrative, however, is really a rite-of-passage story. For example, in a not very believable opening, a cringing George is pounded in humiliating fashion by his teenage peers. We're given no explanation, nor does actor Barrymore physically resemble an easy mark. It's not a promising beginning. Then, in a much more persuasive scene, Dad casts a slightly disapproving eye over his nervous son's birthday cake (symbolic of the story). So the kid must prove himself not only to Dad, but to himself.

It's not a tight screenplay. Events more or less simply follow one another, tied together by the theme of vengeance. Happily, however, the narrative doesn't drag. Actor Barrymore Jr. had a rather brief career despite the pedigree. One thing for sure, he's certainly different looking. With a mop of unruly hair and slightly crooked mouth, he's no glamor boy. Nonetheless, his looks are perfect for the role, such that, when he dons a sport coat and hat, he still looks like a kid trying to take a big step up. All in all, the young actor does pretty well in the kind of difficult role that would later go to James Dean. I also like a de-glamorized Joan Lorring, who's a good match for him. My one real complaint is the way Al Judge (St. John) is written. His behavior is so crude and ugly, it's hard thinking of him as a respected sports writer. A racketeer would have been more credible and easier, so the scriptwriters must have had a reason.

Then too, the screenwriters, Butler and Lardner Jr., along with director Losey, were all blacklisted during Hollywood's commie hunting period. I suspect it was their leftist leanings that are responsible for one of the film's most arresting sequences. George goes to a nightclub where a drop-dead beautiful black songstress (Mauri Lynn) entertains. Afterward, he encounters her outside and is compelled to compliment her looks and talent. She glows at the flattering remark. Trouble is his heartfelt momentum carries over to the unspoken qualification "for a Negro woman". She grasps the unfortunate hanging-in-the-air racial reference, and is reminded of her not-fully-equal status. Thus, disappointment clouds her former glow. It's a beautifully played moment and quite powerful in emotional impact. I wonder what happened to that fine actress.

Anyway, the movie does have a number of effective noir touches, especially George's twilight escape through LA's towering industrial district. It's a mysterious world so much larger than himself. All in all, the film is oddly memorable, thanks, I think, to Barrymore's unusual presence. I know I sought it out on DVD, lo, so many years after having first seen it in a theatre.

(In passing—the burly guy sitting next to Barrymore and Bourneuf ringside at the fights is Robert Aldrich, the great director of such classics as Kiss Me Deadly {1955} and Attack {1956}.)

Joseph Losey's The Big Night is a film noir that's also, like Moonrise and Talk About A Stranger, a coming-of-age story. The young male undergoing his transformational journey is John Barrymore, Jr., son of the Great Profile and father of Drew. His film career was not high-profile, as he inherited the family disposition toward chemical dependency (blood will tell). But here, boasting a luxuriantly healthy crown of hair, he gives a surprisingly intense yet controlled performance. His big night happens to be his 16th or 17th birthday, when his barkeep father is brutally beaten and publicly humiliated by a local sportswriter (Losey's staging is unflinching). Frustrations about his own Hamlet-like ditherings and confusions impel him to seek revenge on his father's behalf, and, gun in pocket, he sets out into a nightscape of prize fights, gin mills and the walk-up flats of casually met strangers. While Losey's sympathies lie with Barrymore, it's always clear that the emergent man is still a callow stripling, incapable of apprehending the complex reality he crashes into, like a fatted calf in a china shop. Though the director refrains from pushing the conclusion to where it might logically go -- he retreats into sentimentality and sententiousness -- The Big Night still scores as a provocative, moodily shot film.

A truly cop out ending really ruins what was potentially a great coming of age film. John Drew Barrymore gave an outstanding performance as our youth protagonist who does a lot of growing up in The Big Night.

Young Barrymore celebrating his 17th birthday is horrified that at his birthday party sportswriter Howard St.John gives Barrymore's father Preston Foster one severe and public thrashing. And Foster who back in his prime Hollywood days in the 30s was one rugged tough guy just submits to it. A case of directolr Joseph Losey casting successfully against type. i do wish we saw a bit more of Foster in the film though.

Looking to avenge the family honor Barrymore has quite an odyssey on his Big Night.

I can't say more lest I spoil things, but the ending was a cop out. My guess was that the soon to be blacklisted Joe Losey made some concession to Hollywood convention. It was not over politics though.

Not the best note Losey could have left America on.