So Dark the Night

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 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.

Without a vacation in eleven years, eminent police detective Henri Cassin (Steven Geray) welcomes the opportunity for a well earned rest in the village of St. Margot, staying at Le Cherval Noir guest house. He quickly draws the attention of the owner's attractive daughter, Nanette (Micheline Cheirel). Apart from a significant difference in their ages, another slight problem exists.....she is engaged to imposingly handsome agricultural worker, Leon (Paul Marion). Having been childhood sweethearts their relationship is well entrenched, to the extent that the small community is eagerly anticipating the big day.

As Cheiriel and Geray grow ever more passionate and Marion is pushed to the margins of her life, he makes no secret of his jealousy, anger and an explosive temper, like a cork off a champagne bottle....not that he could afford a bottle of champagne. Aah, there's the rub, he is poor in stark contrast to the wealthy, dapper detective. Quizzically, Cheiriel and Marion promptly disappear for several days, amidst rumours that they have eloped. When a local yokel has a hunch that Cheiriel's corpse is floating in the river, a horrified Geray confirms that she has been murdered prior to her body being dumped in the water. The volatile Marion immediately becomes the main suspect, but on arrival at his farm, he is found dead too. An apparent suicide, the perceptive detective concludes that this is another murder. Soon, disconcerting, anonymous notes begin appearing, penned in unidentifiable handwriting, threatening further murders.

At length, with no more insight into the mystifying case than any of the hicks from the sticks, the defeated, deflated detective decides to return to Paris by train, (via Bristol apparently), compelled to question both his ability and state of mind.

Not a mega, must see movie, but a curiously off beat entry in an unusual setting. Seldom seen and worthy of further investigation for noir junkies. Bonne chance !

Remarkable film which it is almost impossible to rate or review, unless I guess, you hate it and think that it is irredeemable rubbish of the 1-3/10 kind. I can definitely sympathise with anyone deciding that this film is unlikable.

But it is probably an even more exaggerated example of Joseph H. Lewis' overly crafted, utterly fake, and fantasy infused interpretations of an inane, insipid and indolent b-movie script mounted on a 12 day day b-movie production cycle, than his 'My Name is Julia Ross' from the proceeding year.

This film is therefore an even greater display of all style and no substance than that somewhat more widely known offering.

Indeed, for a long time I thought that this European set semi noir Gothic psychological crime thriller actually was a deliberate fantasy Film in the vein of a folk story or fairy tale: my opinion to this effect was at it's hight when a hunchback villager makes a vivid appearance around the half way mark!

Gradually though I changed my mind and I concluded that this is a film where the interpretation of the material it is founded upon is so wide that almost the only thing reaching the screen is the directors vision and the photographers cinematography.

I'm effect the sense of fantasy and fairy tale is because the director has filmed a second film directly over the top of the bare scripts bare story and bare characters so that it's almost a bifocal film.

If you are a fan of this director, or of film experimentation, or of b-movie "magic" then this MIGHT be for you and I would recommend accordingly.

Personally I had to watch it twice to make sure that it wasn't just a load of rubbish inventively photographed.

At this stage I was still only minded to rate a 6/10 but in reflection I realised how nicely played the lead role is for a film where clearly the script must have been nearly pointless for the actors: for them it was the director and the cinematographer and the art director who mattered and not their character is written.

Secondly, after checking that this was indeed shot on a back lot of Columbia's in a matter of days; the conjuring up of the material impression of a French village (complete with bizarre characters.) is staggeringly efficiently and efficaciously done.

So I upped my rating to a 7/10. My qualified recommendation stands.

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.