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Joseph H. lewis was a great director who could do wonderful films with little money. Maybe that was why Columbia's president Harry Cohn gave him so much freedom to work. So Dark is the Night is an almost noir entry about a French detective on vacation in a little town near Paris who investigates some murders which he was somehow involved. A short and objective cheap movie that does not hide the director's talent and gives Steve Geray a great role. People who want to make unexpensive movies should know this gem.

The premise is of the not particularly innovative but still very interesting and potentially suspenseful kind, there are plenty of good B-films and am somebody who has always liked this genre. Was very interested in seeing how an actor who usually did character supporting roles would fare in a gritty lead role, which is the case with Steven Geray. Joseph H Lewis doesn't get enough credit today in my view and many of his films are well worth watching and more.

'So Dark the Night' is not a great film or one of Lewis' best films, but it is a good one and worth watching. Not perfect, but it is another shamefully neglected film and like its director it doesn't get enough credit. Some may find the premise mundane on paper (not me), but somehow it is executed in a way that is more exciting and professional than it initially appears. So much more than a typical B movie. Which was a general strength actually of Lewis' films.

It is hindered a little by its budget, with moments where there is a rushed look and the sets are less than evocative.

Did also find the ending rather improbable and the film a bit of a slow starter.

However, a lot works in 'So Dark the Night's' favour. The acting is very good, Geray carries the lead role very well. Was worried that such a gritty lead role would be out of his depth but it was great to see a different side to him and pull it off. The rest of the cast are very little known but also come over well in types of role that are seen a lot in similar films but not written in too cliched a manner.

The film also has a good deal of atmosphere. It has a lot of suspense and truly genuine dread, nothing mundane or stagy here. The story is from the very beginning very absorbing and never stops being intriguing, predictability, over-simplicity and confusion are very low on the scale. Was not expecting the twist and it was memorable. Lewis directs imaginatively, clearly knowing what he was doing and making the film closer to near cinematic than mediocre B movie level.

Furthermore, the script is always entertaining, hard boiled and gritty, laden with tension. There is some nice moodiness and skill in the photography and the audio is suitably ominous when needed.

Concluding, well done. 7/10.

So Dark The Night poses a tough challenge: It's very hard to write about it in any detail without ruining it for those who haven't yet seen it. Since it remains quite obscure, that includes just about everybody. The movie will strike those familiar with its director Joseph H. Lewis' better known titles in the noir cycle – Gun Crazy, The Big Combo, even My Name Is Julia Ross, which in its brevity it resembles – as an odd choice.

For starters, the bucolic French countryside serves as its setting. Steven Geray, a middle-aged detective with the Surété in Paris, sets out for a vacation in the village of Ste. Margot (or maybe Margaux). Quite unexpectedly, he finds himself falling in love with the inkeepers' daughter (Micheline Cheirel), even though she's betrothed to a rough-hewn local farmer. But the siren song of life in Paris is hard to resist, so she agrees to marry him, despite the disparity in their ages, which inevitably becomes the talk of the town.

But on the night of their engagement party, she fails to return to the inn. Soon, a hunchback finds her body by the river. Her jealous, jilted lover is the logical suspect, but he, too, is found dead. Then anonymous notes threaten more deaths, which come to pass. For the first time in his career, the bereaved Geray finds himself stumped....

A particularly weak script all but does the movie in; it plays like bad Cornell Woolrich crossed with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. But Lewis does this creaky vehicle proud. He takes his time near the beginning, but then the story – and the storytelling – gain momentum (alas, just about the time the script breaks an axle). Burnett Guffey lighted and photographed the film, with an intriguing leitmotif of peering out of and peeping into windows; there's also an effective score by Hugo Friedhofer, who supplied aural menace to many noirs. A good deal of talent has been lavished on So Dark The Night, but at the end it boils down to not much more than a gimmick – and not a very good gimmick at that. It's a one-trick pony of a movie.

STEVEN GERAY never got to play the leads in most of his films at Columbia, but he gets his chance here as a detective badly in need of a vacation in the French countryside. As in all such stories, he has no time to relax because he's soon involved in a double murder.

The trouble with the film, for the most part directed stylishly by Joseph H. Lewis, is that it takes too long to become absorbed in the plot involving a double murder. The bucolic country scenes never develop the characters fully and they don't really come alive until we're midway through the story. And then, as the detective begins to study the case, the plot takes a twist in another direction entirely.

It's a minor entry in the films that were taking on more psychological tones in the early '40s, but I can't say there's anything memorable about the characters or the script. But for a film produced on a shoestring budget, it's a lot better than you might expect.

So Dark the Night is directed by Joseph H. Lewis and written by Dwight V. Babcock, Martin Berkeley and Aubrey Wisberg. It stars Steven Geray, Micheline Cheirel, Eugene Borden, Ann Codee and Egon Brecher. Music is by Hugo Friedhofer and cinematography by Burnett Guffey.

Henri Cassin (Geray) is a well regarded Parisian detective who while on a much earned vacation falls in love with innkeeper's daughter Nanette Michaud. However, with Nanette already having a boyfriend, and a tempestuous one at that, true love does not run smooth, especially when murder enters the fray and Cassin has to start investigating the tricky case.

It all begins so perky, with jolly music, smiling faces and brightly lighted compositions, so much so I had actually thought I had loaded the wrong film to watch! Once Henri Cassin arrives at Le Cheval Noir (The Black Horse) in the rural town of St. Margot, however, the whole tone of the film shifts into darker territory. The apple cart is well and truly turned upside down and various character traits start to come into play - with the various main players suddenly becoming an interesting bunch. Enter hunchbacked man, jealous guy, love sick chamber maid, weak parents et al...

Joseph Lewis (My Name Is Julia Ross - Gun Crazy - The Big Combo) does a top job in recreating a French town with what no doubt was a small budget, yet his greatest strengths here are his visual ticks, in how he manages to fill the picture with the requisite psychological discord that craftily haunts the edges of the frames until they be ready for maximum impact. In partnership with ace photographer Guffey, Lewis brings tilted angles and black shadowy shadings to this French hot- bed of lust and character disintegration. He also has a nifty bent for filming scenes through windows and bars, while his filming of a rippled water reflection cast onto a character's face is as significant a metaphor as can be. Also note scenes involving a rocking chair, a dripping tap and a deft window splice sequence that signifies that the psychological walls are tumbling down.

Something of a rare picture given that who the director is, this definitely is of interest to the film noir loving crowd. The finale will not surprise too many, but it doesn't cop out by soft soaping the topic to hand. It also serves to show that the great Joseph H. Lewis could make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. 7/10

Now available as part of the Columbia Film Noir Classics IV Collection.