A Kiss in the Dark

In A Kiss In The Dark David Niven is cast as a concert pianist whose business manager Joseph Buloff handles his many diversified investments which among other things a brownstone apartment building called The Cleopatra Arms. Acting as superintendent of the place and also one of the tenants is Victor Moore. When Moore comes calling one day Niven finds out about his ownership and gets to meet some of the many tenants there including perky model Jane Wyman.

It isn't too long before Niven is involved throughly with the lives and fortunes of all the tenants there. Among others are Wyman's boyfriend Wayne Morris and an irascible Broderick Crawford who has a problem getting to sleep.

We're never told what his job is, but Crawford works a graveyard shift job and comes home and wants a little shut eye. The comedy around him centers on his irascibility due to sleep deprivation. I'm not sure how funny that is, I had sympathy for the guy. Nevertheless all the other tenants want him out and Niven finds a way to oblige.

With Victor Herbert's melody weaving in an out of the soundtrack and serving as title and theme for the film, A Kiss In The Dark is a slight but amusing comedy that in the hands of a director better suited for comedy might have worked better. Certainly David Niven has gotten worse material and managed to make it work.

A Kiss In The Dark was the farewell film of Maria Ouspenskaya who plays Niven's original piano teacher. Maria whose career went back to the Russian Art Theater was killed in a house fire the same year A Kiss In The Dark came out.

One hopes that David Niven held on to the Cleopatra Arms. What it would be worth today is incalculable. A lot more than the film.

David Niven, a concert pianist, has just acquired a new property, that of a hotel building called Cleopatra Arms. I forget the details of how or why, but the place turns out to be anything but normal. He goes to see the place, after getting a visit from the hotel manager Victor Moore about getting repairs fixed for the building inspector. David winds up inspecting Jane Wyman, a tenant in her short shorts, and they instantly hit it off, despite the fact she already has a boyfriend, played by Wayne Morris. Broderick Crawford is a tenant who works by night, so he must sleep by day, and is very obnoxious about everyone making too much noise. There is a very funny bit about David practicing his piano playing next door to Crawford's room in an attempt to get the brute to move. In fact, I enjoyed the whole film, as it was very lighthearted and fun, with David being put in the position of Boy Scout leader, when he takes a group of boys on a hike and David, of course, knows nothing about such outdoor techniques of building a lean-to shelter. A sweet and satisfying little winner this is with Jane and David and a kiss in the dark....

"A Kiss in the Dark" is a fun, warm story, gentle romance and fine comedy. David Niven is very good as world famous pianist Eric Phillips, who goes into the apartment house management business. Jane Wyman is very good as the saucy and very likable and helpful tenant, Polly Haines. But this film owes at least half its charm to Victor Moore. His Horace Willoughby had to sell his apartment building because he was going broke by his charitable management.

Moore had at least two superb movies in his later career. This one and his Aloysius T. McKeever, in the great 1947 comedy and drama, "It Happened on Fifth Avenue." Some other cast members here are notable - Broderick Crawford as the very loud Mr. Botts, Wayne Morris as insurance salesman and Polly's boyfriend, Bruce Arnold; and Joseph Buloff as Eric's crafty, cranky and slightly crooked business manager and handler.

Another Hollywood lady of distinction has a small role, but she is always recognized and appreciated. Maria Ouspenskaya, the Russian actress who defected in 1922 appeared on Broadway for several years and then founded the School of Dramatic Art in 1929 in New York. Here she plays Madam Karina.

This is a fine film with very humorous touches that most people should enjoy.

Here's a line from Mr. Willoughby to Polly: "I knew you were in love with him before you did."

This film is a pleasant diversion that might be described as cute.

Eric Phillips (David Niven) is a neurotic pianist who lives life on a treadmill, surrounded by a retinue dedicated to keeping him on the concert circuit, earning money. When his financial manager invests some of his income in the purchase of an apartment building called the Cleopatra Arms, Eric gets a visit from a man named Horace Willoughby (Victor Moore) with news that will shake up his life.

Jane Wyman plays the part of Polly Haines, a comely model who lives in the Cleopatra. I'll admit that I have underestimated Ms. Wyman in the past, but this film has reminded me that she has talent and attractiveness. Polly is a somewhat simple part to portray, but Ms. Wyman elicits all of its facets with apparent ease.

Broderick Crawford does what he does so well: playing a pugnacious, ranting bully. He is meant to be part of the comedic relief, but his portrayal is not light-hearted enough, and better suited to a film like "Born Yesterday", which has serious issues to peddle.

Niven is the soul of light-hearted comedy, and he easily occupies the film's focal point.

I love it when snobbish Phillips (Niven) suddenly surveys the lovely Polly (Wyman) as she stands across from him in bare-legged short-shorts. Up to now the concert pianist has enclosed himself in a haughty world of the upper-class, too elevated to bother with either concerns of the flesh or those of everyday commoners. But now, oh my gosh, is that the sudden knock-knock of fleshy hormones on his closed door. Happily for me, his aren't the only male hormones the movie's activating.

Catch how snobbish Phillips is when he wants to evict the poor tenants from his newly acquired fancy hotel. Seems they don't measure up to his elite standards. But what does he care that neither kids nor adults have a place to go. Thus, enlarging his withered sense of humanity becomes a key plot thread amid a rather clogged screenplay. And guess who helps him.

Anyhow, the flick's much better at romance than comedy, the latter being clumsily overdone at best, Crawford shouting up an annoying storm, for one. Nonetheless, it's a good thing ace performers Wyman and Niven are on hand to salvage things, especially Wyman just coming off her Oscar winning deaf-mute in Johnny Belinda (1948). Together, the twosome make the gradual humanizing of the haughty Phillips believable, despite the contrived scheming going on behind their backs. That last part, I think, needed a rewrite.

All in all, it's a 90-minutes mainly for fans, or maybe even non-fans, of the two leads. Too bad Wyman and future President Reagan divorced in '49. She would have made a heckuva First Lady in short-shorts, and I surely would've voted Republican.