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Thursday, February 22, 2018

NIGHT PEOPLE (1954)

From divided post-war Berlin, a plotty Cold War piece about a kidnapped American soldier; snatched from the streets and whisked off to the Russian Sector to facilitate a swap for a pair of senior-citizen Anti-Nazis. Good twisty fun if you don’t think too hard about it. (Like why the Ruskies don’t just kidnap the frail old couple in the first place. Or the scrabbled ending, a self-described 'punt.') Yet the film has its pleasures as Gregory Peck’s methodical Colonel works out the crisscrosses, helped by former under-the-radar lover Anita Björk, currently working both sides of the East/West divide; and deals with rich, politically connected ‘Ugly’ American Broderick Crawford, hard-changing father of the kidnapped boy, just blundered in from the States and demanding fast action. Directing for the first time after decades as a top Hollywood scripter, Nunnally Johnson proves visually non-interventionist, typical of the early CinemaScope manner. He’s looser in the opening & closing segments, but mostly gets by thru excellent casting & the natural Yin/Yang dust-up that runs between Peck’s still-waters-run-deep cadences and Crawford’s patented blitzkrieg vocal delivery. Think of it as illustrated radio drama, a pretty enjoyable one. (Or John Le Carré For Dummies.)

DOUBLE-BILL: Johnson, had more than 70 writing credits over four decades, but only directed 8 of them (from ‘54 to ‘60). Two years after this, THE MAN IN THE GREY FLANNEL SUIT/’56, again with Peck, shows considerably more visual panache.

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