NIGHTMARE (1942)

That generic title isn’t the only secondhand thing in this modestly effective Universal programmer; so too the plot which is largely patterned on Alfred Hitchcock’s THE 39 STEPS/’35.  Here, Brian Donlevy’s gets Robert Donat’s spot as a London visitor whose chance encounter with a lady in trouble leads to a dead body and his picture in the paper as the presumed murderer.  Yikes!  On the lam, he heads north to find the real culprit, reluctantly helped by a mysterious lady whose antipathy slowly warms to partnership & a love match.  The main structural change combining the two women (originally Lucie Mannheim & Madeleine Carroll) into one, with the murder victim now a different character.  Diana Barrymore, daughter of John, has her highwater film appearance at 20, playing the combined role.  (She’s good, too, but would soon be brought down by the Barrymore curse: drug and/or alcohol addiction.)  Silly stuff, of course, and a far cry from Hitchcock, but not without a bit of swing & style under journeyman director Tim Whelan who got lucky with an unusually strong supporting cast for Universal: Henry Daniell, Arthur Shields, Hans Conreid & John Abbott.  Lesser known Gavin Muir plays the main villain (the man with the missing finger in 39 STEPS, Godfrey Tearle), here running a Fifth Column for the Nazis.  Whelan also got top-tier cinematographer George Barnes and an inventive score out of busy Frank Skinner.  The two also with major Hitchcock connections; Barnes Oscar’d for REBECCA/’40, Skinner about to score SABOTEUR/’42.  If only there were a decent edition around to replace the smeary dupes available on the internet.  Much of Barnes' daringly dark lensing barely visible.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Scripter Dwight Taylor (who wrote PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET/’53 with Sam Fuller -  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/03/pickup-on-south-street-1953.html) was prescient, writing LONG LOST FATHER/’34 for Diana’s dad John Barrymore, about a long absent father meeting his daughter after twenty years.  Not far off their actual relationship.