Fear in the Night

Still more film noir - and quite a grabber it is. First of all - Kelly and Kelley are excellent. The story - short as it is - will have you paying attention from top to bottom..

This is a tight, well-scripted movie. It is, of course, small-budgeted, but it is big on excitement. This flick is well worth your time and, as is usual with these dark flicks, you have to pay constant attention - no wandering minds allowed. "Fear In the Night" is worth your time.

The gals are good - what little they have to do.

It is fascinating to watch DeForest Kelley when he was just getting started. He does well with his 'rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights" expressions.

Anyway, check this out. One more thing - the attempted suicide scene is almost Hitchcock-like.

OK, this is a little film noir from 1947. You can stream this one for free on Netflix or for free at Archive.org. Fear in the Night is about a man (Vince) who has a terrible nightmare in which, he kills a man in a strange mirrored room.

When he wakes up he discovers that he has blood on his wrist on bruises on his neck just like in his dream. Slowly Vince begins to realize that he may have actually committed the murder that he dreamed about. In a panic Vince enlists the aid of his brother in law Cliff and the two of them try to figure out what happened before Vince is arrested for murder.

You can tell right away that this was made on a modest budget and some of the acting is pretty atrocious but, it's an interesting crime drama and was an enjoyable watch.

This movie was re-made with the same director in 1956 with Edward G. Robinson. This time it was called Nightmare.

This is the feature film debut of DeForest Kelley who later went on to play "Bones" on Star Trek.

Very decent noir thriller that is just that little bit different. Difficult to describe without giving everything away and I have to say that at a certain point about two thirds into the movie, I guessed what was going on. I doubt views in the 40s did though and this remains a most unusual movie with some very real scary moments. Not a lot or tearaway action but plenty of mind games and surreal goings on. The opening is spellbinding and an absolute thrill, the acting with DeForest Kelley and Paul Kelly is fine, even if the latter struggles now and again in what is a very difficult role. Clearly made for nothing, written and directed by Shane, this is a great example of what can be done in cinema with just a bit of imagination and a decent story.

Okay, I admit it, a lot of the charm of this really low budget effort comes from Deforest "Bones" Kelley. Kelley's homely mugg was made for b-picture third bananas / villains and this rare, unlikely turn as the goodguy lead (his first credit) is as much the source of FEAR IN THE NIGHT's enjoyment as anything. Kelley gives a nice try in a role he wasn't really built to play, overcoming several overly melodramatic moments with generally naturalistic and believable reactions to the rather ridiculous and murky situation he finds himself in. Direction and other performances are unremarkable, though a little bit of stylistic cinematography in the flashbacks isn't bad.

NIGHTMARE was the slicker remake which came about nine years later with Edward G. Robinson, Kevin McCarthy, and slightly more money, but I would suggest that this earlier version has more suspense and rooting interest (Kelley is far more sympathetic than McCarthy.) More importantly, the flimsy plot holds together better in FEAR IN THE NIGHT, omitting the poorly motivated Edward G. Robinson character entirely. This is far from a great movie; it's not even really a good noir, but Kelley's rare lead performance is fascinating and he makes us care about what happens. Anyone who is into Star Trek classic will probably be as quickly hypnotized by his young non-baggy-eyed presence as Deforest is by the badguys.

Deforest Kelley has a nightmare in which he kills a man. He can't go in to work, so he goes driving with his sister and girl friend and brother-in-law Paul Kelly... to the house in which he dreamt the murderer.

It's a film noir from a story by Cornell Woolrich, so you know up front that it's going to be overwrought. It's also Kelley's first feature, and screenwriter Maxwell Shane's debut as director. Given the poor condition of the copy I looked at -- plenty of hiss on the audio track, as well as looking as if it was made from a 16mm. TV print -- I was not able to evaluate cinematographer Jack Greenhalgh's visuals, so important for a movie with extensive dream sequences.

Even with those handicaps, I was able to see the basic competence of this Pine-Thomas production. There's little that's fancy about the production, but the ripeness of the source material, the solid actors (Ann Doran has a solid role, and old Demille hand Julia Faye an uncredited bit) make this an agreeably disagreeable noir.