Nocturne

This neat little noir thriller is a rare find. The dialog is witty and clever. The acting, mainly by a second-line cast, is better than in many bigger budget movies. I was especially impressed by Myrna Dell's performance. Plus she had some of the best lines in the flick, i.e., "He was a lady killer. But don't get any ideas. I ain't no lady." Another line, "Who ever heard of a detective wearing a hat," is uttered by a dance hostess instructing Dt. Joe Warner (George Raft) who is trying to squeeze information out of her about the suicide (the audience knows it is murder)of composer Keith Vincent (Edward Ashley). Such witticisms are scattered throughout the film.

Many critics rate George Raft's performance in "Nocturne" as poor at best. But actually he plays the part fairly well as the director, producer, and writers intended for Joe Warner to be. He is a mama's boy (40's and still living with mom). He is definitely a Hitchcockian lead character - producer Joan Harrison comes in to play here. Hitchcock would take this image to its utmost realization with Norman Bates. As critics have pointed out in other IMDb reviews Joe Warner's mom (Mabel Paige) has some of the best scenes in the movie. Since he is living at home and obviously supported by his mother, Joe can afford to indulge in going his own way. He does not have a family to support. One reason he is so interested in the case is his love for music. He and his mom both play piano. In one scene he talks about spending much of his spare time attending the opera. So music and murder intertwine. "Nocturne" is appropriate as a title, not only because it is the name of the murdered's composer last composition which he had not quite finished when shot to death, but nocturne also connotes L.A. nightlife where much of the action in the film takes place. Nocturne can also be used to describe the tangled minds of many of the frequenters of the clubs and hang-outs in the film.

Some critics have mentioned that no answer is given as to why the womanizing murdered composer called all his girlfriends Delores. The writers were attempting to point out that like most womanizers, Keith Vincent was only interested in women as sex objects. A woman had no existence in his mind beyond her genitalia. He wanted sexual conquest, not commitment or any kind of romantic relationship. So to him all women had the same name. Why he chose Delores is left to the viewer to decide. Again, the influence of Joan Harrison manifests itself. Hitchcock left much to the viewer's imagination. How did James Stewart get off the roof from which he was dangling in "Vertigo?"

If you have not seen "Nocturne," you are in for a treat, one of the lost treasures of the 1940's.

A piano composer is killed in an apparent suicide, and George Raft is a detective who searches for the truth among the composer's many past girlfriends. Lynn Bari plays opposite as a dark haired, beautiful prime suspect.

The plot needed a bit of work. Even after seeing the conclusion of the film, it is difficult understand exactly what happened. Despite this one shortcoming, the film is really watchable and moves well. The dialog is sharp and a lot of nice details are worked into the film. Look for Myrna Dell, who plays the "Tehachapi Debutante" in a supporting role.

Joan Harrison was the producer, and the film bears her unmistakable stamp. This is a noir film, though not as dark as her earlier "Phantom Lady", which was a superior film in terms of acting and overall dynamics.

The opening shot is technically interesting for a 1946 film as it opens up on the night skyline and continuously glides into the the composer's penthouse living room as he plays piano.

This would have been a better film. It opens with that stunning shot of L.A. then slowly zooms in on the composer in his hilltop home for a mesmerizing beginning, but spends the rest of its running time spinning its wheels. Part of the problem is the confused script which lacks urgency and never brings the story into any kind of focus. There's the occasional flash of excitement or an injection of atmosphere, but then it drifts. It's a film with a very short attention span; it doesn't seem to care much about its own story and seems to be in search of anything it can find to distract it.

And then there's Raft. He was adequate in the similarly well-shot 1945 noir Johnny Angel, also directed by Marin, because in that film he's motivated by a thirst for revenge against the man who killed his father, a simple and rather easy emotion to play. But here he's a detective who's supposed to be obsessed with finding the murderer of the playboy composer, who is killed in the middle of writing one of his songs (a nifty little premise) though the police believe it's a suicide. This is a trickier set of emotions to play and Raft can't pull it off. Why does he care so much? Is he a frustrated musician? It's never explained. There are no layers to Raft, no sense of vulnerability, no dimension or mystery - he's about as wooden as they come. He's only effective when he's acting tough - pushing a guy into a pool or taking on some thug twice his size. When he's asked to do more than that he's not so much lost as he is simply unwilling or constitutionally incapable. He just doesn't have it in him.

One of the pleasures of noir is watching a tough guy getting in over his head and discovering to his horror that there are some foes he can't lick, or allowing his commitment and dedication turn into obsession. A Bogart or a Dick Powell or a Ralph Meeker or a John Payne or a Dan Duryea or even a Mark Stevens could've supplied the necessary psychological complexity to make the detective in Nocturne a memorable and tragic figure. Raft, unfortunately, isn't in their league.

One last thing: the most interesting presence in the film is piano player Joseph Pevney, who later went on to become a very busy TV and movie director. He's only in two or three scenes, but he makes the most of them.

Tough and dogged detective George Raft investigates a composer's death. It was ruled a suicide but Raft doesn't buy it. Despite being ordered off the case, he continues to look into it and tracks down some of the women the composer had "relationships" with.

George Raft gets a lot of flack for being stiff or playing the same role over and over, but I happen to like most of his movies that I've seen. He had no pretenses about being a Shakespearean actor. He knew what he was good at playing and worked with it quite well. His earlier WB successes in gangster movies and the like were always fun. Here he's playing a film noir detective, which isn't too far removed from those older roles come to think of it. He's quick with a snappy comeback and doesn't back down from anybody. It's a part Raft plays with ease but that shouldn't be taken as a put-down, as is often the case. Several tough female roles in this one. Lynn Bari and Virginia Huston (in her film debut) get the juiciest parts but honorable mentions should go to Myrna Dell as a wisecracking maid and Mabel Paige as Raft's mom, who helps him with his investigation.

Good script with some punchy noir lines, interesting characters, and a good ending. A nice fight scene, too. By the way, the film's title refers to the song the composer writes for his latest conquest. The guy wrote songs for all the women he screwed. They had a classier kind of douchebag in the old days, I guess.

There are some nice touches in this noir if you can get past Raft's non-acting. For a cop obsessed by a murder, he really needs more than one frozen expression. It doesn't help that the script sticks this 50-year old man with a 60-year old mother (Paige), even if she can wisecrack with the best of them. She's a hoot, but he still looks more like a brother than a son.

That opening sequence, however, is masterful and a testament to RKO's artistic team. A night-time camera swoops down from high above the Hollywood hills into a swank, ultra- modern glass house where a handsomely attired man noodles on a piano while a mystery woman sits in the shadows-- and the plot sets up from there. It's done in a single take and is quite riveting.

So who did kill the noodler (Ashley). Maybe it was his bad piano playing. More likely it's one of a hundred women who've visited that swank bachelor pad. Anyway, detective Warne (Raft), after viewing the glamour photos on the wall, is obsessed with finding out. His sleuthing takes us on a entertaining tour of LA area hotspots, circa 1946, including a ship that never sails. The attraction really isn't in the whodunit, which proves difficult, anyway. It's in the characters and the settings and some nice touches. There's the brassy blonde "housekeeper" (Dell) who assures us she sleeps alone, the fashion photographer who can't stand his model, the hulking gorilla (Hoffman) who KO's Warne amusingly off-camera. Most of all, there's Mom who may make you rethink nice old ladies. Then too, I like Joe Pevney as the moody, laconic "Fingers"; his smokey joe seems just right.

All in all, it's an interesting, if uneven, movie with some good dialogue, but with a wrap-up that sounds like it was thrown together on the way to the studio.