Night Editor

Synopsis Crane Stewart (Charles D. Brown), the editor of the New York Star, while playing poker with his friends, tells a story about a cop involved in a murder investigation.

In flashback, the editor tells the tale of police lieutenant Tony Cochrane (William Gargan), a family man who cheats on his wife with socialite femme fatale Jill Merrill (Janis Carter). Cochrane and the woman, who is also cheating on her husband, witness a man bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with a tire iron while the couple is parked at "lovers lane" by the beach.

The two can't report the crime without revealing their cheating, a dilemma which eventually leads to bigger troubles. Meanwhile, Cochrane must investigate the killing but is not able to tell anyone he witnessed the crime.

This movie was supposed to be the first in a series of Night Editor movies, but it's the only one that was ever made.

It's definitely Film Noir (I've been watching quite a few so called Film Noir movies and many just aren't. This is a fairy good example of the genre, although it sure is "talkie." I would have preferred some more action.

A lot more action. On the plus side, it's a really short film. I guess it was part of a two feature showing.

I just found my newest femme fatal favorite. Janis Carter, who plays an incredibly sexy but psychopathic society woman having a deranged affair with a police detective in the 1946 C-level noir Night Editor. Never saw her before. When she and the detective witness a woman being clubbed to death while they're sitting in a lover's lane, the Carter character suddenly starts yelling, "I want to see the body." Man, when this lady asks for a "date" with her cop lover, you know she's not fooling around. This actress was far more convincing as a dangerous seductress than most of the other actresses playing those roles in the 40s and 50s, with the exceptions of Barbara Stanwick and Gloria Grahame. What a waste that she didn't appear in more and better noirs.

Columbia Pictures, the home of the Three Stooges shorts,"Batman" serials,"Crime Doctor", "Boston Blackie" and many other programmers, was also the place where many B movies were hatched including this very low budget crime yarn based on the radio program "Night Editor" by Hal Burdick and the short story "Inside Story" by Scott Littleton.

This film version, very tightly directed by Henry Levin, and starring the then aging and rumpled William Gargan, is a definite Noir artifact of the late 1940's.

There's little pity in this compact story of sex and brutality. Unusual for a film of this time period, the femme fatale is depicted as a woman who feeds on cruelty and takes gleeful joy in looking at the battered corpse of one of her previous friends. Murder and perversion seem to function as the only things she truly loves. They are what she demands others give her so she may feed the bottomless emptiness within.

Originally fashioned as a pilot episode for a new continuing series like its radio show progenitor, the film was a failure upon release, but succeeds as a stand alone example of the close ties between sex and sadism in the continuing Noir cycle.

Catch that big crashing wave as spider woman Jill (Carter) reaches her own kind of climax. There's nothing like viewing a mangled dead body to get some spider women off, and Jill's some kind of cold-hearted 40's temptress. Too bad cop Cochrane (Gargan) doesn't run for the hills or maybe even his loving wife after viewing this little perverse episode. Instead, he covers up the murder he and Jill just eye-balled. After all, neither wives nor city fathers reward philandering husbands. So how is Cochrane going to clear his conscience once an innocent man is about to get fried for a murder the two illicit lovers know he didn't commit.

My guess is Night Editor was hoping to repeat the success of the noirish Whistler series, also adapted from radio. It didn't happen, but not because of a failure in this 60-minutes. Sure, it wraps up in conventional fashion, even if imaginatively done. After all, there was a stultifying Production Code in effect. Still, the other 55-minutes amounts to a nail-biting trip down black shadow lane. Actor Gargan may not show much emotion as the conflicted cop. But then he's got to keep his real feelings inside. Otherwise he might give it all away, which includes not just his job but wife and family, as well. So, how did he get mixed up with the blonde man-eater in the first place. Apparently it was from working on a prior case that involved Jill and her ritzy clueless husband. It appears she sets a mean trap for about every guy crossing her predatory path, including bank presidents.

No doubt about it, Jill's on the very edge of 40's perversity. Carter really looks the part of blonde ice-queen, even if nuance is not her strong point. I was hoping for some big-eye close-ups that made her similar role in Framed (1947) so memorable, but director Levin's camera stays mainly at a neutral distance. On the whole, it's the script and dark material that carry events.

Anyway, this early noir is a neglected must-see. I'm not going to say gem, since it doesn't quite rise to that level. Still, for sheer 1940's daring, Harold Smith's crafty little screenplay remains an eye-opener.

William Gargan and Janis Carter star in "Night Editor," a 1946 B noir.

On a newspaper night shift, the people in the newsroom are told the story of Tony Cochrane, a police officer. This was the first in a planned series of night editor stories, which never happened.

Tony was a married man cheating on his wife (Jeff Donnell) with a married socialite, Jill Merrill (Janis Carter). One night, they're parking down by the beach, and they see a man beat a woman and run away. They both see his face clearly. Tony could have apprehended the man, and perhaps even stopped the murder (though it seemed to have happened very quickly) but he was afraid of being found out and losing his wife, son, and his job.

When the murder is reported, Tony has to investigate, not letting on that he was a witness. By now he's broken things off with Jill. He's surprised to see her name on a list of the dead woman's friends. He confronts her, because he suspects she recognized the man, but she won't tell him the man's identity. Things go from bad to worse.

This was pretty good and effective, with a nice ending. Gargan by then wasn't anyone's idea of a leading man, but was a good playing a cop. Gargan had a laryngectomy in 1960, after which he devoted his time to the American Cancer Society and used a voice box.

Janis Carter is a glamorous femme fatale here and plays a woman devoid of any conscience or compassion. In fact, when she learns the dead woman's face had been bashed in, she wants to see it. The idea is, she's married to an older rich man and likes slumming.

I wasn't expecting much from this two-noir disc from Netflix, but I would up liking both of them.