Und die Nacht wird schweigen

James Gould Cozzens wrote two novels that were truly great-Guard of Honor and the Just and the Unjust--and ,occasionally, melodramatic junk that was wildly over praised at the time of publication.The ne plus ultra of his ;iterary artlessness was undoubtedly By Love Possessed. When it was published, it was a wildly praised best -seller. The only dissents came from Dwight McDonald, who wrote a hilarious assault on the book called "By Cozzens Possessed", and William F.Buckley, Jr. who took a page and a half to sink it beneath the waves in his National Review. Of course, like all melodramatic best sellers, it eventually had to be made into a Hollywood film. However, the only Hollywood directors at the time capable of making it into a good movie were Sirk (and maybe, just maybe, Preminger).Sirk, in fact, with his exquisitely controlled irony, and his insight into American manners and mores would have produced a chilly, superbly calibrated, yet compassionate melodrama, comparable to All that Heaven Allows, Written on The Wind, or Imitation of Life. Unfortunatly, Sirk had fled Hollywood, and Preminger was busy making Advise and Consent. So the decadent Hollywood system in its "genius' gave it John Sturges. Result: a movie that looks like a Sirk film( thanks to Russell Metty), sounds like a Sirk film, and has the cast and plot of a Sirk film..but isn't a Sirk film. Result..bloated, turgid, melodrama, without a drop of genuine wit, irony, compassion , or human insight. Well, maybe Cozzens deserved it, at least for this one. On the other hand, having carefully read Guard of Honor and The Just and the Unjust, both could be made into superb films-with the right direction and/or cast. Paul Thomas Anderson, are you paying attention?

There's nothing better than Lana's voice when she's being quietly emphatic about whatever ... she can purr with the best of them and takes you back to her earliest days in film. Otherwise, the movie seems to jump all over the place as far as plot/who we really want to focus on. In many ways Zimbalist and Robards should have switched parts: to see Hamilton get riled up each time he has a conversation with the incredibly passive Zimbalist is laughable. Great '60s period piece, great cast - the inimitable Thomas Mitchell (Pa O'Hara from "GWTW"), Everett Sloane and Barbara Bel Geddes ("Miss Ellie" from "Dallas") add to the fun of this soaper (I agree with the review that says "Sirk - without Sirk") and it was a good find.

What can be more laughable than a film that attempts to skewer wasp hypocrisy and small-town stereotyping, but uses such stereotyping in it's presentation of characters? This is an unabashed attempt to gather the Peyton Place fans by bringing back Lana Turner to a New England setting in Autumn, along with the period Boy-Man of angst, George Hamilton. While Turner is so good that she can do this type of role in her sleep, and still come off well, the rest of the cast is pretty wooden, especially Efrem Zimbalist. It's easy to see why he could portray an FBI agent on TV so well.

Nothing more than a turgid melodrama, so popular at the time, filmed in color with a panoramic view so that it could lure the women of 1961 away from the B&W small-screen TV daytime soap operas, to see the exact same stuff on a big screen. Pass on it and get Peyton Place instead, unless you're a Lana Turner fanatic.

By Love Possessed is your high gloss soap opera 50s early 60s style. Had it been done at Universal it would have had Douglas Sirk directing and Rock Hudson in the lead. Here we have Efrem Zimbalist starring and John Sturges who's a bit lost in this genre directing.

Possibly Sirk passed on this one. The drama centers around the law firm in a most conservative small town. Senior partner is Thomas Mitchell who does not look well at all, possibly at the beginning of his final illness and his partners are son-in-law Zimbalist and Jason Robards. Zimbalist is your hail fellow well met and a bit stuck up Ivy League type, a bit thick in his dealings with wife Barbara Bel Geddes and son George Hamilton.

As for Robards he's married to Lana Turner, but he's not been up to that challenge recently. This was still the era of the Omnipresent Code and impotence and its causes are not spoken of by polite movie characters. Turner turns to Zimbalist for some action.

Young Hamilton repeats his sensitive youth character from his role in Home From The Hill in the previous year. He's got good, but neurotic girl Susan Kohner on the string, but his hormones cry out for the town teen tramp Yvonne Craig. She and her mother Claire Carleton are the ones you really remember from this film, their performances have some real bite to them.

Efrem Zimbalist was starring in 77 Sunset Strip at the time at Warner Brothers and they were hoping to transition him to a big screen name like they did with James Garner. That was not in the cards for Zimbalist, but he did get to co-star with a screen legend in Lana Turner.

Not his fault, but the way Zimbalist's role was written I could never develop a rooting interest for him to overcome and deal with his problems. Quite frankly, he's a fathead. Turner also seemed a bit off kilter for a screen sex symbol in this film.

But Lana's fans will love her.

This story of a small town in a New England-type setting has Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Jason Robards and Thomas Mitchell as attorneys in a law firm, and it seems that Mr. Mitchell is getting too old and senile to continue. At least, Efrem seems to think so, especially when an awkward situation arises, even though the "old man" is his father-in-law. But Jason Robards is more kind-hearted and doesn't want to hurt the old man. Jason has his own problems; he had some sort of skiing accident (or something like it) and uses a cane for his limp. But his main problem is that he drinks to compensate for feeling like less than a man and therefore withdraws from wife Lana Turner, who likes to feel appreciated as a wife and woman. What woman wouldn't? Efrem's character has problems, too. He's a black-is-black and white-is-white attorney, who thinks the letter of the law's answer to any particular situation is the best solution, instead of what may be best for all concerned in the long run - in comparison to lines from "Madame X," "Justice must be merciful, justice must be just." But Efrem's vision is very narrow. He lives unto himself, not seeming to need anyone, even his wife Barbara Bel Geddes. She calls him untouched, meaning nothing in his surroundings really affects him. Even people. Even his son, George Hamilton, feels neglected by his passive father. To finish out the cast is Susan Kohner, a young lady who's an orphan and was left well off by her deceased parents, and who happens to love George, but the feeling's not mutual. The "old man" Thomas Mitchell takes care of her and her trust fund. Despite the details I have gone into (I saw my copy of it last week), there isn't really that much happening and there's a lot of talk, talk, talk. My main problem with it is that Jason Robards had virtually nothing to do and his talents were wasted, to say the least. George Hamilton comes off the best with his natural flamboyant way. And, Efrem Zimbalist is perfectly cast as the passive, by-the-book father. While the beginning of the film may feel rather slow and lifeless, by the end of it, I realized that I had been enveloped in their world and had lost all track of time. Isn't that the point of film, to lose yourself in another world? Granted, this may not be your ideal film for escapism, but I have seen much worse.