Year: 1946
Director: Joseph H. Lewish
Country: US
Language: English
Lately I've been browsing the Criterion Channel, a streaming service for a lot of arthouse and classic pictures that has been available since the beginning of the month. I've been viewing the Columbia Noir section after being greatly impressed by the terribly underrated My Name is Julia Ross (1945). Hopefully So Dark the Night (1946) would be seen as a hidden gem, largely ignored by a 2019 audience, as well.
A renowned and relentless Paris detective (Steven Geray) takes his first vacation in eleven years at a small inn in the French countryside. There he meets and falls in love with the hotelier's daughter (Micheline Cheirel), who had been betrothed to a neighboring farmer, but who hopes to marry him and move to Paris. On the evening of their engagement, both the fiancée and the farmer disappear.
So Dark the Night (1946) is not an underrated classic; the very fact that this has not been lost in time is proof that it is very much over-rated. A mystery thriller that does not thrill nor is mysterious; this picture slugs along at a grueling pace due to the piss poor screenplay. The "twist" may have been fresh back in the 40's (although M from 1931 does it better) but now its insulting and lazy.
Granted, I can't be entirely negative. The noir-style flourishes are intriguing, especially considering the film's extremely limited budget. We are treated with atmospheric photography, tilted angles, moody shadows, and shots that peer in or out of windows. The lighting and set design are remarkable; if we could judge a film based on visuals alone I'd give this an A+.
So Dark the Night is a decent film for students looking to understand it from a purely technical perspective, but otherwise it should have been forgotten and abandoned decades ago. It was only an hour, but it felt like four.
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