Quelque part dans la nuit

Somewhere in the Night is directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who also co- adapts the screenplay with Howard Dimsdale from a story by Marvin Browsky. It stars John Hodiak, Nancy Guild, Lloyd Nolan, Richard Conte, Josephine Hutchinson and Fritz Kortner. Music is by David Buttolph and cinematography by Norbert Brodine.

George Taylor (Hodiak) returns from the war suffering from amnesia and trying to track down his identity by following a trail started by a mysterious man named Larry Cravat. Pretty soon George finds himself thrust into a murder mystery where nothing is ever as it seems.

The amnesia sufferer is not in short supply in film noir, neither is the returning from the war veteran, but Somewhere in the Night may just be one of the most under appreciated to use these central themes. Amongst film noir writers it has a very mixed reputation, yet the trajectory it follows is quintessential film noir stuff.

George Taylor (Hodiak assured and rightly playing it as low-key confusion) is very much at the mercy of others, thus he finds himself wandering blindly into a labyrinthine murder mystery. His journey will see him get a beating (no matter he is one tough boy), pulled from one suspicious location to the next and introduce him to dames, a stoic copper, a shifty fortune teller and a "too good to be true?" club owner. The screenplay is deliberately convoluted, making paying attention essential, and the script blends tongue in cheek nonchalance with spicy oral stings.

The locations Taylor visits are suitably atmospheric, even macabre at times, which allows Mankiewicz and Brodine (Boomerang/Kiss of Death) to open up some noir visuals. Dr. Oracles's Crystal Ball parlour really kicks things off, fronted by Anzelmo (Kortner deliciously shady), it's a room adorned by face masks on the walls and lit eerily by the glow of a crystal ball. Then there's Lambeth Sanitorium, with low-lighted corridors, many doors that hide mentally troubled patients and the shadow inducing stairs. And finally the docks, with dark corners down by the lapping silver water, a solitary bar at the front, smoky and barely rising above dive status. These all form atmospheric backdrops to enhance the suspicion and confusion of the protagonist.

Nancy Guild (apparently pronounced as Guyled) didn't have much of a career, and much of the criticism for the acting in the film landed at her door, but unfairly so. It's true that she's more friendly side-kick than sultry femme fatale, but she has a good delivery style that compliments the doubling up with Hodiak. She's pretty as well, a sort of Bacall/Tierney cross that's most appealing. Elsewhere Conte and Nolan offer up the expected enjoyable noirish performances while a host of noir icons flit in and out of the story, making it fun to see who will pop up next? There is undeniably daft coincidences and credulity stretching moments within the plotting, and in true Mankiewicz style the film is often very talky, but it's never dull and quite often surprising, even having a trick up its sleeve in the finale. Great stuff. 8/10

I'm a bit disappointed that I don't find myself liking this more than I do. See, it has one of those dreamy film noir openings, a man emerges from the war unable to remember who he is. Bandaged up in a hospital bed in Hawaii, it's still the Pacific Theater with the war in its closing days, he discovers a letter in his wallet but instead of kind words from a loved one anxiously awaiting for him to come back, it tells him he's loathed and despised. Deciding he doesn't want to find out who he was in that past life, he checks out of hospital without a word.

It's the stuff noir heaven is made of, the notion of a previous life and being karmically reborn into a next one, night in the big city rife with hidden knowledge, demanding we investigate. Coming back to a Los Angeles hotel that was his last known residence before the war, he discovers a satchel he had checked in, and lo, there's a note inside, and one that tells him he was paid a hefty amount of money.

At so many points sparks threaten to fly, evocative places are visited in the middle of the night, portentous characters are looking for him around town. He's beaten up, nearly run over, framed for murder. In the docks he meets with a wily narrator - a pretend spiritualist - who openly tells him he should not trust a word he says. There is another house where a spinster daughter makes as if she knows him but does she? A visit in a sanatorium reveals someone else who is locked up, unable to remember.

So much ought to have been just right here, making this worthy of other entries in my list of top noirs, and yet the best quality of films like Crossfire or Out of the Past is that they are able to ski on the edges of semiconscious knowledge, of self unexpectedly slipping into a world he gives rise to. Here we have a self-conscious filmmaker in control, who, it gradually becomes apparent, is trying to construct that noir sense. Instead of spontaneously slipping out through back roads, we're taken places that someone has just finished renovating for us.

It's the difference between detective fiction of the Sherlock Holmes kind and film noir where a narrator is not fully in control. So of course it all ends with the bad guy finally unmasking himself and making a big fuss of explaining things to us. Of course it's timed just right for the cop to make the arrest.

It's all a bit cleverly here, self-conscious, and you'll see it in the self-referential nod to movies. The same filmmaker would go on to do All About Eve.

The more tantalizing notion in all this for me is that the note professing such hatred for him really was from a loved one he stood up one day, or was it a last letter that he wrote and was planning to send but never got around to?

The trademark of any Joseph L. Mankiewicz film is screenplay. It is often sharp and crackling as in his award winning "A Letter To Three Wives" and "All About Eve". In this Mankiewicz's second directoral effort the seeds of his future successes are sown.

John Hodiak plays a wounded marine who wakes up in a hospital not knowing who he is, but finding among his possessions 2 letters, one from a woman telling him what a cad he is and another from a friend of his that will lead him down a path lined with several murders, 2 million dollars and a couple of good looking women.

While "Somewhere In The Night" sounds like any one of the many detective thrillers of the 40s, it is lifted from the routine is the script which has a distinct Mankiewicz ring to it

His touch is evident in several places, including meetings with a seedy fortune teller, superbly played by Fritz Kortner, an atypical cop played by Lloyd Nolan who doesn't understand why "movie cops" always "have their hats on", and a spinster played by Josephine Hutchinson who gives Hodiak a hope when she says she recognizes him.

You may or may not figure out the plot. It matters not. The film is an enjoyable one.

John Hodiak is a war vet with amnesia who searches for his identity and possible complicity in a crime in "Somewhere in the Night," a 1946 film also starring Nancy Guild, Richard Conte, and Lloyd Nolan. The film is directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and he also co-wrote the screenplay with Howard Dimsdale.

Severely wounded in the war, Hodiak's character, George Taylor, has had to have facial reconstruction. His recovery is slow, and he can't remember anything. He has a partial letter on his person telling him that he's despicable, and when he picks up his belongings, he finds a letter from one Larry Cravat. Investigating Cravat leads him to murder, stolen money, and some unsavory characters who are after him.

This is a muddled movie that still manages to be absorbing, probably because of the talent behind and in front of the camera. Nancy Guild plays a singer in a club owned by Richard Conte. She becomes interested in Taylor and tries to help him. Guild is attractive and looks like a noir heroine in the Bacall-Raines genre, but she delivers her lines in a very flat manner. Lloyd Nolan as a police detective is terrific as always, and Conte gives a smooth performance.

You have to pay attention to "Somewhere in the Night" or you'll get lost - sort of like the hero does at points in the movie. Still, it's worth seeing.

Mankiewicz does it again. With a small cast of generally B actors, he makes a nifty film-noir. John Hodiak has his best role, IMHO, and the mostly night-time settings have a great look. Strange to see Fritz Kortner, from the Louise Brooks "Pandora's Box", as a slimy fortune-teller.