Fear in the Night

What the movie lacks in believability it makes up for in sheer visual imagination. That opening sequence is a real grabber. Just what the heck is going on with the fuzzy focus and dreamlike images. People are going here and there in front of a bank of mirrors. Then, all of a sudden, someone hands Vince a drill. But Vince doesn't stick it into a chunk of wood. Instead he plunges it into a man's heart! Good thing Vince wakes up in bed, maybe sweaty, but at least inside a focused reality. Must have been a bad dream, but then why the bloody wrist and where did that weird key come from. From what we see, it's almost like he's come back from a strange parallel world.

So did Cliff actually kill someone or was it just a bizarre subconscious. Good thing he's got Mr. sober-sides Cliff as a cop brother-in-law. Maybe Cliff can figure it out since it's driving Vince nutty. Trouble is Cliff thinks his in-law really did kill someone, but in the interest of family harmony resists turning him in. So how will all this weirdness turn out, and what's suddenly the big deal about a candle.

Kelley really nails his part as the hapless Vince. Catch his many shaded expressions as he suffers through the nightmare. Paul Kelly too nails his part with a no-nonsense demeanor that keeps things anchored. But the real star is the production itself that manages to dangle us between two worlds with the many off-center effects. Sure, too much storyline stretches over the edge. Still, it's pretty gripping stuff, straddling the murky line between noir and horror. The premise was loaded enough to get re-made a few years later, Nightmare (1956). But this one, I think, is better. So don't let it slip by.

OK, this is a little film noir from 1947. You can stream this one for free on Netflix or for free at Archive.org. Fear in the Night is about a man (Vince) who has a terrible nightmare in which, he kills a man in a strange mirrored room.

When he wakes up he discovers that he has blood on his wrist on bruises on his neck just like in his dream. Slowly Vince begins to realize that he may have actually committed the murder that he dreamed about. In a panic Vince enlists the aid of his brother in law Cliff and the two of them try to figure out what happened before Vince is arrested for murder.

You can tell right away that this was made on a modest budget and some of the acting is pretty atrocious but, it's an interesting crime drama and was an enjoyable watch.

This movie was re-made with the same director in 1956 with Edward G. Robinson. This time it was called Nightmare.

This is the feature film debut of DeForest Kelley who later went on to play "Bones" on Star Trek.

This is a sadly forgotten, but fantastic film noir gem released in 1947, and based on a story by the renowned author Cornell Woolrich . The opening is an amazing and surrealistic dream sequence up along with, say, Polanski's dream sequence in Rosemary's Baby. Straightforward plot, good though perhaps not great actors, and decent directing. It was a low budget production which is apparent, albeit not a nuisance.

A remake was made by the same director nine years later. The original had a tenser atmosphere which corresponded well to the surrealistic formula. On the other hand, the remake had Edward G. Robinson starring in a supporting role.

An unnecessary detail in the remake was a musical ingredient that was extended to the protagonist being a musician. The upbeat jazz music, absent in the original, actually interfered with the tense atmosphere. However, this was the style in the mid-fifties cf Hitchcock's remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much (also released in 1956) that featured one of this year's greatest hits, Que sera sera.

Contrary to Hitchcock's successful remaking, Fear in the Night surely didn't need one, and the remake - Nightmare - isn't more of a classic today than its original version.

Still more film noir - and quite a grabber it is. First of all - Kelly and Kelley are excellent. The story - short as it is - will have you paying attention from top to bottom..

This is a tight, well-scripted movie. It is, of course, small-budgeted, but it is big on excitement. This flick is well worth your time and, as is usual with these dark flicks, you have to pay constant attention - no wandering minds allowed. "Fear In the Night" is worth your time.

The gals are good - what little they have to do.

It is fascinating to watch DeForest Kelley when he was just getting started. He does well with his 'rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights" expressions.

Anyway, check this out. One more thing - the attempted suicide scene is almost Hitchcock-like.

As I prepare to launch another film noir marathon, I thought I'd get back into groove with something small, offbeat and quickly sketched, but authored by a guy who was one of the preeminent creators of noir: Cornell Woolrich.

His Deadline by Dawn would make my list of 10 favorites in the genre, it captures the chimeric noir world on the deepest level.

Noir is all about the hallucination, the anxious narration causally tied to the world of the film. This structure is probably more explicit here than in any other noir film, including Lang's: the film starts with the narrator having a nightmare where he kills a woman in a mysterious octagonal room with mirrors, but when he wakes up in his room he finds traces of the murder.

Over the course of the film, bit by bit memory seeps back into his narration. A storm leads him back to the fateful house. A cop brother- in-law and his girlfriend act as conscience, escorting him on the journey of atonement. It's all about guilt, memory and mishaps of fate. But the execution is slapdash, the actor doesn't have any tragicool charisma. It's off.

But how about this as explication of noir dynamics? What we see and the protagonist experiences in the opening scene as the noir nightmare was very much real, but at the same time illusory for him in the moment of experience—double perspective. And how about this as the deeper cosmic joke of the prankster gods of noir? There would be no problem for our guy if only he didn't wake up that morning with the memory. So it wasn't the killing, but memory that causes stuff—being conscious of the nightmare, it acquires reality. Superb Woolrich.

So this is a miss, but right off the bat we have some expert delineation of the noir universe.

Noir Meter: 3/4