The Film Noir Collection - Fear in the Night [DVD] [1947]

Fear in the Night may be just another B movie designed to fill out a double bill, but it has some good things going for it. And that makes it a watchable, interesting noir.

Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelly), a pleasant, unexceptional young bank teller, wakes up one morning after a horrendous nightmare. He dreamed he was in a mirrored room, locked in a terrible fight with a strange man. He finds himself with a sharp-pointed awl in his hand and he drives it into the other man's chest. Then he drags the body into one of the small rooms behind one of the mirrored doors. When he wakes he's covered with sweat. He makes his way to the bathroom in the small hotel room he rents and finds thumbprints on his throat and blood on his hand. In his coat pocket he finds a blue button and an odd-shaped key. He makes his way to his sister's house to talk with her husband, Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly), a police detective. Herlihy just puts Cliff's story down to stress. But a couple of days later, driving out for a picnic with his girl friend, his sister and Cliff, Vince suggests they go to Salado Canyon, a place he's never been to before. In a downpour, Vince directs them to a large, dark house he's never seen. He knows where the key is under the mat. The house is empty, with the furniture and curtains covered by large, white drop cloths. He goes upstairs with Cliff and finds a small, mirrored room, and behind one of the mirrored doors, bloodstains.

Vince's nightmare is just beginning. Did he kill a man in the house? Why would he? Who were the two people killed there when Vince and Cliff talked with a local cop? Cliff Herlihy now is convinced that murders took place, that Vince wasn't responsible...and that Vince still might be a killer. Clever deductions take place, traps are set, and Vince almost pays with his life.

The movie may have been made to be the bottom half of a double bill, but is still is a lot of fun to watch. First of all, it's efficient. At just 72 minutes, the movie doesn't waste a moment. Blink your eyes and you'll lose a clue, miss a motivation or lose out on some affectionate by-play between the detective and his wife. Second, the movie has several nicely constructed moments. Vince's nightmare is well-handled. The house where the murder took place is big and a little creepy. Vince's hotel, the New Commodore, and the downtown street where it's located looks exactly like a lot of similar places in the late Forties. Vince's encounter with a man who is holding a candle is odd and unsettling. The relationship between Vince's sister, Lil Herlihy (Ann Doran) and her husband is a nice combination of affectionate bickering and genuine love. Third, while all the actors do nice jobs, Paul Kelly as Cliff Herlihy is a standout. Kelly was a fixture in B movies and he almost always was better than his material. He played bad guys and good guys, but his style was confident and tough. And he was tough. In the Twenties he spent two years in San Quentin for killing a man in a fist fight. He was a fine actor who, if given a chance, was just as good playing off-kilter or cowards. The scenes he has with Gloria Grahame in Crossfire are weird and memorable.

Most of all, the story has that terrific pulp noir feel; not great, perhaps, but satisfying. The story came from "Nightmare" by Cornell Woolrich writing as William Irish. Woolrich's pulp mysteries are still among the best, and I doubt if anyone had more noirish movies made from his books and stories. Here are some, from Wikipedia:

Original Sin (2001 film) (novel "Waltz into Darkness")
Union City (1980 film) (short story "The Corpse Next Door")
Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972 film) (novel Rendezvous in Black)
Nightmare (1956) (story)
Rear Window (1954) (story "It Had to Be Murder")
No Man of Her Own (1950) (story "I Married a Dead Man")
The Window (1949) (story "The Boy Who Cried Murder")
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) (novel)
I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes (1948) (novel)
The Return of the Whistler (1948) (story)
Fear in the Night (1948) (story "Nightmare") (as William Irish)
The Guilty (1947) (story "He Looked Like Murder")
Fall Guy (1947) (story "Cocaine")
The Chase (1946 film) (novel The Black Path of Fear)
Black Angel (1946 film) (novel)
Deadline at Dawn (novel) (as William Irish)
The Mark of the Whistler (1944) (story)
Phantom Lady (1944) (novel) (as William Irish)
The Leopard Man (1943) (novel Black Alibi)

Read 'em and enjoy. See 'em and enjoy. But with public domain movies, it's buyer beware, and Fear in the Night is in the public domain. The version I watched was in poor condition.

I was actually looking for "Nightmare" by the same Director which, at around 12 years old, was probably the film that has scared me most of all the thousands I have seen - but regrettably it seems not to be available. Fear in the Night is an enjoyable mystery but this copy is spoilt as so scratchy that it is impossible to understand the dialogue at times, not too important a consideration in this instance

Fear in the Night is directed by Maxwell Shane who also adapts from Cornell Woolrich`s (AKA: William Irish) story titled Nightmare. It stars Paul Kelly, DeForest Kelley, Ann Doran, Kay Scott & Robert Emmett Keane. Music is by Rudy Schrager and photography Jack Greenhalgh. Plot finds bank teller Vince Grayson (Kelley) awoken from a nightmare where he kills a man in a mirrored room. Disorientated and sweaty, Grayson is further startled to find bruises on his neck and items about him that suggest that his nightmare was real. After confiding about the events to his brother-in-law, detective Cliff Herlihy (Kelly), it`s presumed he`s under stress and a good day out with the girls will do him wonders. But once the picnic with the girls is interrupted by a storm, Grayson finds himself leading the group to a house in the country. A house he doesn`t know and a house he`s sure he`s never been to, but upon the discovery of a mirrored room it becomes evident that something very strange is going on...

Low budget across the board but not suffering too much for it. A cracking little film noir mystery neatly condensed into 72 minutes. Maxwell Shane`s film is dealing in dreams and a protagonist caught in a circumstance, without understanding, that`s out of his control. Tormented not only by the events of what appears to be in his "dream", but also by the heavy cloud of befuddlement that follows him during daylight hours. He himself ponders if he is going insane? It`s a good question, and one which Shane and Woolrich do well to not answer for the first half of the film as the atmosphere stays hazy. The tone of the narrative is aided considerably by Greenhalgh`s photography, Schrager`s music and Shane`s box of cheap, but hugely effective, tricks.

Much of the film relies on visuals to make its points, even as we get a cool pulpy voice over from Grayson, the blurry shifting images say much more. So too does the use of mirrors, very Hitchcockian: with the actual mirrored room at the core of the story very disambiguation like. There are shadows involved for practically every interior shot and even for much of the outdoor sequences too. While the music comes from the realm of the haunted house. The cast give variable performances, but there`s nothing to hurt such a short movie. Lets just say that Kelley (in his first main role) fits the dazed requisite well and it`s no bad thing that Doran & Scott don`t get a lot of screen time. Kelly (Crossfire) is good value, making a believable copper, while Keane is wonderfully sedate and creepy (check out the candle sequence).

True enough there`s problems that stop it being a B noir classic, such as the back screen shots and the afore mentioned less than stellar acting. Whilst the film would have benefited more by having a Gothic designed house as opposed to the white picket fence type that is used. But considering the budget and time of its making, it`s an admirable film that`s easily recommended to noir and murder mystery fans. Shane liked the story enough to remake it as Nightmare in 1956 with Edward G. Robinson & Kevin McCarthy as cop and protagonist respectively. A bigger budget and name actors it has, but the jury is still out on its worth. I`m happy with this version, thanks, even if the DVD print is old and scratchy. 7.5/10