The Long Night

I just have to say... It seems as though every negative comment about this film starts out with "this is a bad REMAKE of..." Surely, I suppose it's nearly impossible to view THE LONG NIGHT as itself when you have already seen Marcel Carne's 1939 flick (and maybe even harder if you have created within yourself a dedication to anything foreign, slightly obscure, or non-Hollywood). The great thing about this movie, if one can get over the remake aspect of it, is that it is truly LOADED with great things! The set design and artwork are fantastic! Tiomkin's music is, once again, a fine creation! Polito's cinematography, camera work, and use of light are brilliant! Sure, the great story is, for the most part, taken from somewhere else, but the screenplay by the great John Wexley is excellent. I might be reading a bit to much into this, but I saw working class heroism, touches of popular justice, and just a hint of bourgeois deceit. The latter showed in the fantastic performance by Vincent Price as his character continued to try to sell a fantasy to Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes) by means of magic and falsehood. All in all, I think this one is just like any good work of art: if you put a little into it, you can get a lot out of it.

When I went to my local library to check some DVDs, I stumbled onto this obscure flick that starred Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes (in her film debut), Vincent Price, and Ann Dvorak. With that cast (I just remembered that Elisa Cook, Jr. has a memorable role as a blind man here), with Anatole Litvak as director, and Dimitri Tiomkin conducting his score (as well as some Beethoven pieces spread among it), I expected an excellent suspenseful movie and I got it! Well, maybe nearly so since the speech Ms. Bel Geddes says to Fonda at the end is obviously contrived to address the audience as well as the leading character about the faith of people. Otherwise, the dialogue was mostly spot-on especially the heated exchanges between Fonda and Price who, as usual, is absolutely charming even in his creepiness. And Ms. Dvorak marks a nice contrast with her cynicism as compared with Ms. Bel Geddes' optimism. Fonda himself goes the full range of emotions whether during the flashbacks or his present condition of being holed up in his apartment while the police are waiting outside. So for all that, I highly recommend The Long Night.

Henry Fonda, Vincent Price and the film noir genre are reasons enough to see any film, and The Long Night did show a lot of promise. I didn't find that the The Long Night quite delivered enough, but it certainly has a lot of good things. It's very well made for starters, one of the most beautifully shot and visually atmospheric film noirs of the 1940s in my opinion. Dmitri Tiomkin's music is far from his best work with a lot of it sounding like re-arranged Beethoven(you decide whether you consider that a compliment, but it is very haunting and fits the film very well. But the high point of The Long Night was the acting. Henry Fonda gives an intelligently sensitive lead performance, and Barbara Bel Geddes- managing to look younger than she was- in her film debut is very touching as the love interest. Ann Dvorak is deliciously cynical, and Vincent Price is effortlessly ominous and smarmy as an utter sleaze-bag of a character(people will argue that he was at odds at the rest of the film but I rest the blame on the writing not Price). The Long Night does have faults though, the characters are not fleshed out enough to make me care for them(I would have cared more for Joe if the "when he's in jeopardy" scenario had been made less emotionally hollow and senseless), while the script is of rather rambling quality with Bel Geddes' final speech particularly contrived-sounding. The Long Night also lacks momentum pace-wise- well the final twenty minutes picks up a bit but comes too late- and the constant switching back from past to present and vice versa is enough to cause confusion. There are even some ideas like with Joe and Charlene's involvement with one another that are shoehorned in but not explained satisfactorily. So in conclusion, interesting for the cast and how it was made, but with stronger script and story execution it would've been less underwhelming than it turned out to be. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I don't like remakes--and that is why I waited so long to watch "The Long Night". Originally it was a dandy French film ("Le Jour Se Leve") and I saw no reason to redo the film, as the original was quite good. And, after seeing it, I stick by my original opinion--there just wasn't a need to make this remake. However, I can understand why they made it, as folks in the States back in the 1940s did not watch foreign films--and when they saw this American version, it did seem original. But now with DVDs, Turner Classic Movies and Netflix, you should just stick with "Le Jour Se Leve".

The film is a talky picture about a brooding guy (Henry Fonda), his sweetie-pie (Barbara Bel Geddes) and a completely bizarre blabber-mouth (Vincent Price). Fonda and Bel Geddes are in love but Price is determined to break them up--and push Fonda to the breaking point. The story is told through flashbacks and is similar to the Jean Gabin film--without the film noir camera-work and lighting. Also, the American version comes off as much talkier--much. All in all, not a terrible film at all--but not the 9 that the other film deserved when I rated it a couple years ago.

I've never seen the original French film upon which this film was based, but I can tell you I kept waiting for a plot line payoff that never came. It has everything going for it - solid cast giving good believable performances, good direction, even a good speech that Fonda's character delivers from this broken out window as he is under siege by the police that gives us some insight into what it's like for an average guy who has returned home from years of killing and seeing killing in the war expected to pick up where he left off. But ultimately, I never see anything that Fonda's character, factory laborer Joe Adams, has been put through as far as shock or emotional torment or even disillusionment that would justifiably cause him to kill a man. Is Vincent Price's character Maximillian eloquently taunting and creepy? Yes, and in a way that Price excelled at over the years starting in noirs and proceeding on into his horror films. However, at no time does he do anything that would drive anybody to do more than shoo him away or stuff earplugs in their ears or possibly call the ASPCA (You'll have to watch the film to understand this last remark). I'm giving this film a five just for the fact that I believe the production code is the reason any hard edges that seem to be just under the surface never appear. I'm almost positive the script would have gone further if the censors would have allowed it to be so.

The real point of interest to me was the action of the police, who behave a lot like the fascists that Joe Adams spent years fighting in WWII. Sure they have a murderer holed up in his rented room, but he's holding no hostages, they've emptied the building, and still they spray him twice with automatic gunfire unannounced - once from the outside into his window, then from the stairwell into the door. When he pushes a sturdy dresser against the door and they realize they can't force their way in THEN they try talking to Joe, starting with the line "We're not fooling"?? No kidding! After Fonda's speech to the crowd, once the crowd starts voicing their support for Joe and promising financial help with a lawyer the police form a line and practically trample the crowd forcing them out of the street. I don't know if the heavy handedness of the police was something that Litvak wanted the audience to notice, but it was something I noticed.

I'd recommend this one just for the good performances and atmosphere and some imagery you don't see that much in films immediately after WWII, but don't expect something shocking or even interesting to happen just because of all of the talent assembled here.