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Thursday, November 29, 2018

FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1947)

Busy scripter Maxwell Shane, in the first of his occasional writing/ directing assignments, brings loads of visual panache to this William Irish (aka Cornell Woolrich) story. Or does for those who can squint their way thru the subfusc video editions available; all apparently sourced from the same lousy print. It’s a fun watch as a young, sweaty DeForest Kelly dreams himself into an expressionist nightmare where he kills a man with help from some mystery dame in an oddly-shaped mirrored room. Then wakes to the news that such a murder really did occur . . . and he’s carrying incriminating evidence & bleeding. Yikes! How’d this happen? Fortunately, putative brother-in-law Paul Kelley turns out to be a sympathetic, if skeptical homicide dick (how convenient!) and takes on the case. Lots of neat visual flair all thru the pic, a full measure of noirish squalor in cheap residential hotel rooms, good leads & unexpectedly tasty support in character parts. Plus an intriguing, if naturally unspoken, unmistakable gay sub-text between Kelly & Kelley, more in composition & behavior than in dialogue. Check out their overnight together. (Something picked up from the Woolrich story?) The eventual explanations are more far-fetched than satisfying, but you’ll probably want to play along.

DOUBLE-BILL: Shane did a loose remake a decade later, NIGHTMARE/’56 with a starrier cast in Edward G. Robinson & Kevin McCarthy (not seen here).

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