Quando Descem as Sombras

I remember watching it when I was a kid and it scared me badly. Revisiting it so many years later, not so much. Maybe it was the Watergate era in the intervening years that makes everybody suspect anybody and everybody else. But I digress.

Barbara Stanwyck, still a handsome woman at 57, plays Irene Trent. She's married to a wealthy maimed blind ....scientist???...Howard Trent, who is over the top jealous and thinks because his wife talks in her sleep about some dream lover she is actually having an affair. They have a confrontation about his suspicions, he tries to strike her with his cane, and she runs into the street. At about that time there is smoke coming from Howard's lab. And yet blind, he goes up into that lab to handle this himself, there is a fiery explosion, and no more Howard.

And I mean literally no more Howard as in no body. The arson squad guy thinks this is not odd and says there was such extreme heat that the body disintegrated, while he stands next to all kinds of electrical equipment that is undamaged. And the fireproof door saved the rest of the house, and yet there is a hole in the floor. Is there a physicist in the house?

So the thing is, Irene starts having vivid dreams, as in a young man who comes to her, even marries her, with each dream ending with a burned Howard appearing. She feels like these "dreams" are actually happening, not just her imagination. What is going on here? Watch and find out.

So many questions and issues. How did Howard and Irene meet and why would she marry him? She seems to completely loathe every aspect of the guy. She had/has her own business that is doing well, was it just his money? This is never explained. The creepy organ music seems to be "Food Glorious Food" from Oliver, four years before the fact. And there are some very large plot holes - I'll let you find them - I still can't explain. And finally a warning - the film's prologue about dreams goes on forever.

And yet, in spite of all of this, I still like it. It is very much an example of "last gasp of the production code" horror. No gore, no "blood feasts", no hippies. Everybody is always dressed like they are going to work. It uses actual suspense - and mannequins! - to scare you. I'd recommend it.

Producer/Director William Castle, famed for his low-budget shockers complete with assorted gimmicks, had by now reached his "Star Stage." He had featured Vincent Price in two of his films, and in 1964 really scored a coup when he signed Joan Crawford for "Strait- Jacket." Thanks mostly to her drawing power (she would later do "I Saw What You Did" for Castle) the film was a hit - and her publicity appearances on behalf of it didn't hurt, either. So, for his next project, Castle signed both Barbara Stanwyck and her initially reluctant ex-husband Robert Taylor to headline "The Night Walker" from a script written by "Strait-Jacket's" Robert Bloch (who also penned the book "Psycho").

In this psychological mystery melodrama, Stanwyck plays the wife of a rich, blind scientist (Hayden Rorke) who suspects her of having an affair. He hires a detective (Lloyd Bochner) to determine whether his wife is only dreaming of a lover or actually has one. Shortly thereafter, he is killed in an explosion, and his now very rich widow is plagued with nightmares in which he is pursuing her (when she's not dreaming of her mystery lover, that is). Taylor is her late husband's lawyer whom she turns to for help when her dreams begin to drive her mad. And so goes the plot...

Most critics saw this as another "Horror Hag" movie, in other words, a lurid yarn featuring a Golden Age star, a cycle which began with "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" (with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford) and continued with "Strait-Jacket" (Crawford); "Lady In A Cage" (Olivia De havilland) and Ann Sothern) "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" (Davis, De havilland and Agnes Moorehead) etc. This time around though, the still- beautiful Stanwyck was cast as a victim, rather than a villainess (as most of the veteran actresses ended up playing in these films were) and she generated a good deal of sympathy-(besides being a terrific screamer). The supporting players (Bochner, Judi Meredith, Rochelle Hudson and Marjorie Bennett) are capable and game, the production is well photographed and features a truly creepy score from the great Vic Mizzy ("The Addams Family, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken"). Famed voice-over king Paul Frees (for some reason credited as 'Ted Durant') sets the scene beautifully with a short but effective prologue. What really makes this work, however, are the still-potent talents of Stanwyck and Taylor, both of whom are really better than the material, but give it their all nevertheless. Alas, though profit participant Stanwyck toured with Castle to promote it, "The Night Walker" was a box-office flop, and it would take "Rosemary's Baby" which Castle only produced, to put him back on top. It's still an above-average film of it's type though, and pretty scary to watch alone at night.

I watched this film so many times in my youth that I lost the count. Maybe it was because William Castle produced it, or the handsome "dream lover", the music by Vic Mizzy, its surprise ending (which I should have known from reel 1), or the happy time I was having when it was released: I was 13 years old, The Supremes had their first hits, and many stars of the past were back in action. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, and real-life sisters Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine, all starred in black-and-white horror and suspense vehicles in which grand guignol reigned. In this film (written by "Psycho" author, Robert Bloch), Barbara Stanwyck is rather restrained compared to her peers, as a widow having strange dreams (in which Lloyd Bochner seduces her), with ex-husband Robert Taylor lending a hand to solve the mystery. Even knowing the ending, I still enjoyed it again and again.

Dark and spooky movie about murder and deception with a number of twists and turns to it that keeps you guessing until the very last frame.

"The Night walker" is one of those films that doesn't seem to be what you at first think that it is; Something between a horror and psychological movie. The movie skillfully goes from one side of of line to the other throughout it's almost entire time on the screen until that last ten or so minutes when you really see it for what it is and it's very effective in doing it.

"The Night Walker" starts out like something out of the "Twilight Zone" or "One Step Beyond" with a very good prelude about the world of dreams and how we who dream becomes "Night Walkers" in them. Howard Trent, Hayden Rorke, is a blind millionaire who's suspicious of his wife Irene, Barbara Stanwyck. Howard thinks that Irene is cheating on him but all the evidence that he has is a number of audio tape recordings he secretly recorded in her bedroom while Irene was talking in her sleep.

Howard tells his friend and lawyer Barry Moreland, Robert Taylor, how he feels about his wife Barbara at the start of the movie. You somehow at first think that it's Barry who's the man who having the affair with his Irene. It's seems that the blind but very cagey and clever Howard is manipulating both Barry and his wife Irene is some kind of sub-rosa plan that he's cooking up for them. A little later after Howard got into a fight with Irene he goes into his secret room where he keeps all of his audio equipment and tapes, as Irene runs out of the house, and the room suddenly explodes with him being blown to bits to where there's nothing left of Howard but molecules and atoms. With her husband dead and Irene now all alone in the house her dreams,or better yet nightmares, become more and more pronounced and real to the point where she has to leave the house in order to keep from going insane.

Moving into a room at the back of a beauty shop that she owned now instead of her dreams stopping they become even more real to the point where she can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Irenes conjures up this "Dream Man" Lloyd Bochner, who appears to Irene at night. The "Dream Man" is so real that when he gets her to go out with him one evening to a chapel to get married the next day when Irene was driving with Barry through the city streets Irene recognizes the places that she went with her "Dream Man"! Is Irene dreaming all this or is it real? if it is real why and who is behind all this? and even more if it's real what are the reasons for doing this?

Plays like a very good whodunit with Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck giving the movie the attention and class that it wouldn't have gotten if it had much less known actors in those two top roles. The ending to the movie was not at all that contrived as if the screenplay was written only for shock value. The ending tried and succeeded in tying all the loose ends together and giving the film a satisfying instead of a confusing ending.

"The Night Walker" is a very strange film which is in some ways a bad film and in others it's quite good. The bad is the story itself. Although it has some great elements, it really doesn't make all that much sense (such as why didn't the lady ever seek out the police??) and it's best you just turn off your brain and enjoy this one.

The film is made by William Castle...so it's not surprising it starts off weirdly. The prologue is indescribly weird...like taking a hit of acid. You just have to see it to believe it. After, the actual story begins. It seems that a nutty old rich blind guy (Hayden Rorke) thinks his wife is cheating on him. Soon after talking to his lawyer about this, the guy burns up in a fire. Despite him being dead, the wife dreams of him and her dreams are incredibly vivid and disturbing. It has her beginning to question her sanity...as do appearances by a pretty young lover who doesn't seem to be real. What is really going on here?

Pairing Barbara Stanwyck and her ex-husband, Robert Taylor, was an interesting choice....and the film is filled with fantastically eerie camerawork and music...which, along with the husband's make-up, really terrify. If only the story were a bit more logical, I would have rated it higher, as the movie (much like Castle's "Strait-Jacket") is highly entertaining and creepy.