Night Editor

This is a superb film noir B picture. It stars William Gargan as a cop, and the sizzling dish Janis Carter as the femme fatale. And what a femme and how fatale! She is really something. What a pity she did not achieve the status in films which she clearly deserved. Here she plays a hyper-glamorous psychotic man-eater. Poor, bumbling homicide detective Gargan is no match for her. He succumbs, and succumbs, and succumbs. Well, one evening things get complicated. One has to remember that he is happily married to sweetie Martha, played with big loving eyes and a warm smile by 'Jeff' Donnell (she was born Jean Marie but was always called by the nickname of Jeff; see her also as Sylvia Nicolai in IN A LONELY PLACE, 1950), and adores his son. But there he is sitting in a car in a lover's retreat off the road, with Miss Glamour-puss, doing his usual succumbing, when another car pulls up and does not see them. The man proceeds to bash in the skull of the girl and then runs off, but not before they see his face very clearly in the headlights. It later transpires that Janis knows the man very well, but she says nothing at the time. Gargan starts to give chase but then realizes that he dare not do so because his involvement with Janis will come to light and his wife might leave him. So he endures an enforced silence and is then a member of the homicide team which investigates that very crime. A wrong man is accused and is about to 'get the chair'. Tension mounts. Should he do the right thing and stop the execution, at the risk of his career and his marriage? He wants to, but Janis is going crazier and crazier. She is so nuts that she makes statements like: 'I don't know why I do these things' as she tries to stab a man to death. Just the kind of girlfriend one wants! She is a rich socialite and highly sophisticated, thus intimidating the humble Gargan further. As he bitterly says to her at one point: 'You and I both add up to zero.' Every time he tries to leave her, she kisses him, which all goes to show just how dangerous kissing can be. After they have seen the murder, Janis gets a wild look in her eye and, in the midst of a seizure of psychotic excitement, says she wants to go and look at the girl's bashed-in skull and all the brains spattered all over the car because it excites her, and Gargan restrains her only with great difficulty. Janis really is very convincing in all of these scenes, and it is all pretty hair-raising. And so the story progresses. I must not reveal the ending. The next year, Janis went on to scare people further in FRAMED (1947).

The nifty little B Noir is part of the Bad Girls of Film Noir series. The picture is really worth seeing just to see Janis Carter in action. Her frenetic desire to see the body after this guy had just bludgeoned this girl to death was a scene to remember. But she was really the ice lady that giveth and Janis Carter just kept on giving with her icy grip on the the cop and her ability to out maneuver just about everyone.

I had never seen Janis Carter in a B Noir movie but if this is what she is capable of then some of her others might be worth looking for. The words just one more kiss really take on true meaning with Janis Carter. But watch out for that ice pick.

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.

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.

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.