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Fear in the Night

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This is a great old noir film, typical B-feature. I saw this as a child and was haunted for a few years by its eerieness. But, this DVD appears to be a copy of something shot off a movie screen with a camcorder and its visual quality is just at the threshold of human perception. The low price made it attractive enough to revive my memory of the more visible original.

Two decades before he boldly went where no man had gone before aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, DeForest Kelly starred in Fear in the Night, a vintage dark noir film (not to be confused with the 1972 Hammer film of the same name). Kelly plays a humble bank teller named Vince Grayson who awakens from a horrible dream, only to find that his nightmare may have been all too real. In the dream, he struggled with and then killed a man inside an odd octagonal room of mirrors. His relief upon waking up is dashed when he looks in the mirror and finds thumb marks on his neck. A quick self-inventory also reveals dried blood on his wrist and, most disturbingly of all, a key and button in his pocket, the very same items he grasped during his struggle in the dream. Naturally, he is both bewildered and horrified, and his need to talk about the situation leads him to his brother-in-law. Given the fact that his brother-in-law is a homicide detective, this doesn't strike me as the ideal plan. In any event, the guy doesn't believe him. A week later, Vince accompanies his sister and her cop husband as well as his own would-be sweetheart on a picnic. They seek shelter in a house at the beginning of a rainstorm, and wouldn't you know it, it's the same house as the one in Vince's dream. Things suddenly aren't looking too good for Vince, especially when he learns that a man was murdered in the house a week earlier. There's really only one fairly predictable way to explain these confusing events, yet the film still manages to maintain a significant amount of suspense up through its final moments. I found Fear in the Night to be quite a good film noir movie, complete with all the voiceovers and crescendo-happy music you would expect to find in this type of film.

Fear in the Night may be just another B movie designed to fill out a double bill, but it has some good things going for it. And that makes it a watchable, interesting noir.

Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelly), a pleasant, unexceptional young bank teller, wakes up one morning after a horrendous nightmare. He dreamed he was in a mirrored room, locked in a terrible fight with a strange man. He finds himself with a sharp-pointed awl in his hand and he drives it into the other man's chest. Then he drags the body into one of the small rooms behind one of the mirrored doors. When he wakes he's covered with sweat. He makes his way to the bathroom in the small hotel room he rents and finds thumbprints on his throat and blood on his hand. In his coat pocket he finds a blue button and an odd-shaped key. He makes his way to his sister's house to talk with her husband, Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly), a police detective. Herlihy just puts Cliff's story down to stress. But a couple of days later, driving out for a picnic with his girl friend, his sister and Cliff, Vince suggests they go to Salado Canyon, a place he's never been to before. In a downpour, Vince directs them to a large, dark house he's never seen. He knows where the key is under the mat. The house is empty, with the furniture and curtains covered by large, white drop cloths. He goes upstairs with Cliff and finds a small, mirrored room, and behind one of the mirrored doors, bloodstains.

Vince's nightmare is just beginning. Did he kill a man in the house? Why would he? Who were the two people killed there when Vince and Cliff talked with a local cop? Cliff Herlihy now is convinced that murders took place, that Vince wasn't responsible...and that Vince still might be a killer. Clever deductions take place, traps are set, and Vince almost pays with his life.

The movie may have been made to be the bottom half of a double bill, but is still is a lot of fun to watch. First of all, it's efficient. At just 72 minutes, the movie doesn't waste a moment. Blink your eyes and you'll lose a clue, miss a motivation or lose out on some affectionate by-play between the detective and his wife. Second, the movie has several nicely constructed moments. Vince's nightmare is well-handled. The house where the murder took place is big and a little creepy. Vince's hotel, the New Commodore, and the downtown street where it's located looks exactly like a lot of similar places in the late Forties. Vince's encounter with a man who is holding a candle is odd and unsettling. The relationship between Vince's sister, Lil Herlihy (Ann Doran) and her husband is a nice combination of affectionate bickering and genuine love. Third, while all the actors do nice jobs, Paul Kelly as Cliff Herlihy is a standout. Kelly was a fixture in B movies and he almost always was better than his material. He played bad guys and good guys, but his style was confident and tough. And he was tough. In the Twenties he spent two years in San Quentin for killing a man in a fist fight. He was a fine actor who, if given a chance, was just as good playing off-kilter or cowards. The scenes he has with Gloria Grahame in Crossfire are weird and memorable.

Most of all, the story has that terrific pulp noir feel; not great, perhaps, but satisfying. The story came from "Nightmare" by Cornell Woolrich writing as William Irish. Woolrich's pulp mysteries are still among the best, and I doubt if anyone had more noirish movies made from his books and stories. Here are some, from Wikipedia:

Original Sin (2001 film) (novel "Waltz into Darkness")
Union City (1980 film) (short story "The Corpse Next Door")
Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972 film) (novel Rendezvous in Black)
Nightmare (1956) (story)
Rear Window (1954) (story "It Had to Be Murder")
No Man of Her Own (1950) (story "I Married a Dead Man")
The Window (1949) (story "The Boy Who Cried Murder")
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) (novel)
I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes (1948) (novel)
The Return of the Whistler (1948) (story)
Fear in the Night (1948) (story "Nightmare") (as William Irish)
The Guilty (1947) (story "He Looked Like Murder")
Fall Guy (1947) (story "Cocaine")
The Chase (1946 film) (novel The Black Path of Fear)
Black Angel (1946 film) (novel)
Deadline at Dawn (novel) (as William Irish)
The Mark of the Whistler (1944) (story)
Phantom Lady (1944) (novel) (as William Irish)
The Leopard Man (1943) (novel Black Alibi)

Read 'em and enjoy. See 'em and enjoy.

The Alpha Video DVD release of this public domain movie is no better than you'd expect. It's watchable. There are only six chapter stops and they're arbitrarily placed. The back-cover blurb on the DVD case talks about Cliff Herlihy being "stricken by horrific nightmares." It's Vince Grayson who has the nightmares; Herlihy is Grayson's brother-in-law cop. This will give you some idea of the attention being given to these old films.

"Fear in the Night" is a semi-supernatural thriller adapted by the film's director Maxwell Shane from Cornell Woolrich's story "Nightmare". This is a true B-movie, complete with clumsy but not ineffective visual effects, clocking in at only one hour and 10 minutes. As in so many B-movies of the 1940s, the economical narrative gives us a lot of movie in a short time. It lacks the hard edge and stylistic sophistication of many film noirs, but "Fear in the Night" probably falls within the noir style. Its introverted, chaotic, paranoid universe inside the protagonist's mind is the stuff that both existential and surrealist thinkers found to love in film noir.

"Fear in the Night" opens with a puzzling, vaguely lit scene inside an octagonal room with mirrored walls. It hardly seems real. A man and a woman are trying to drill a safe when another man interrupts them. The two men struggle, and the second man kills the first. The next morning, Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelley) awakes from a nightmare of killing a man in that room. But evidence suggests that it may not have been a dream. Unsure if his memory is real or imagined, tormented by violent visions, he seeks the advice of his police detective brother-in-law Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly). Cliff insists that the dream could not be real. Vince's uneasy, muddled mental state persists, so Cliff to browbeats him into accompanying the family on a picnic in the country. Vince begins to remember the landscape . Seeking shelter from a thunderstorm, he leads them to a house with the octagonal mirrored room. Now Cliff is convinced that Vince is a murderer and a liar.

It's unfortunate that Vince's character is not fleshed out more. But the confusion, torment, and alienation that bring him to the brink of self-destruction come across strongly. That's why "Fear in the Night" works. Vince is an Everyman suddenly plunged into a nightmare, unsure of his own mind, unable to connect with the people who care for him. He doesn't even know if the situation is one of his own making or something that fate has cruelly thrust upon him. His life is suddenly out of his control. I can't say that DeForest Kelley is anything more than adequate. Credit for what this film does well has to go to its director. It's not a polished film. The score is overbearing. But "Fear in the Night" gets us inside of Vince's living nightmare. The Alpha Video DVD (2003) is full of specks and spots and has generally poor picture and sound quality, including some clipped dialogue. It's watchable but nothing more. No bonus features.

This movie is a little gem, considering that it was not a big budget film done in a major studio. I saw this film over 20 years ago (even then the quality is like this DVD version) and had memories of the mirrored room scene, but could not remember the movie's name. Yes, the quality is not great, but the plot overcomes the imperfections of the film (which needs restoration work).

If you love movies from yesteryear and have not seen it before, check it out. It is interesting to see DeForrest Kelly when he is a young man, and starting out in Hollywood, and compare him to his Star Trek period.

As it has been mentioned before, the quality of this movie isn't very good. It's only a B-movie and it looks like they saved money by not using enough light and cutting the film with an axe.
But - the actors are great. I bought the movie because I'm a DeForest Kelley fan and interested in his early work. I was impressed. He's very believable as a man who doesn't know if he's commited murder. Paul Kelly gives a solid performance and the story is unusual. The movie is not as good as "Laura" or "The Woman in the Window" but has it's moments. If you like old fashioned movies or want to know what Kelley did before he made westerns and science fiction, "Fear in the Night" is worth your time and money.

Let's face it this movie is pretty good but the real reason I got it is because it is DeForest Kelley in his first starring role. It is worth the price for that. The story is pretty good and the dream scenes were ok. But the acting is not at it's best. The worst thing is the lighting. Sometimes there were shadows where it was so dark I couldn't see what the characters were looking at. However, if you like Star Trek and old films this is pretty good. It is nice to see that Kelley had a chance to do other acting then science fiction and old TV westerns. Not bad for his freshman film.

Fear in the Night, 1947 film

It starts with a dream. There is a fight, a man falls, his body is pushed into a closet. How did those marks get on his throat? And the key? Vincent Grayson calls in sick, Kitty Winters takes his window at the bank. What is his problem? He asks advice from Cliff, his brother-in-law. How did the blood get on his hand? He puts an ad in the newspaper. Cliff takes them for a ride in the country. Vince is in a bad mood and tells Betty to forget him. There is a heavy rain. Vince knows the area. They stop at an empty house for shelter and warmth. Vince goes upstairs and finds an octagonal room with mirrors, just like in his dream! Cliff accuses Vince of lying to him.

The Sheriff's Deputy shows up and tells about the murder that occurred weeks ago. The details are like Vincent's dream. The newspapers kept the story censored. Vince returns to his hotel room where he looks out the window in a dramatic scene. He tells Cliff about what happened the previous night. Is this a clue? Cliff figures out what must have happened. There is a test for Vince. There is a meeting where the murderer explains what he did and tries to justify his actions. Could hypnotism be used to create a murderer? Or cause a suicide? [Some say no.] The police are close behind. Belknap goes off the road. All of a sudden Vince is alright. There is a happy ending now.

This film requires a belief in the idea that hypnotism can create a perfect crime. What about fingerprints? While the details of a murder could be obscured nothing can hide the motive for a murder. I don't know if anyone can be hypnotized or controlled to become an assassin, like "The Manchurian Candidate". We do know the media and advertising can create stories that millions believe because of their misplaced trust. Yet many who have witnessed an event will find errors in the newspaper report.
This was based on the story "Nightmare" by William Irish (Cornell Woolrich).

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir Fear In The Night.

DVD Review

Fear In The Night, DeForest Kelley, Paul Kelly, directed by Maxwell Shane, Paramount Pictures, 1947

Okay here is the familiar rote. Not all crime noir is top shelf, top shelf like Out Of The Past or The Maltese Falcon. By now that proposition has been pretty well established after more than a score of crime noir reviews in this space. Still some of these things can be sleepers, of a sort. Take the film under review, Fear In The Night. On the face of it looking at the unfamiliar cast, the no-name director and the B-movie quality of the production one would throw this one in the has been bin. And mainly that would be right, except that the story line possibilities, never fully exploited, save it for the justly deserved extinction of many of the films in this genre.

Let me show you. A bank clerk (played by Deforest Kelley), an average just trying to get ahead in this wicked old world 1940s marble building bank clerk, has a terrible dream, a nightmare really and cannot figure it out, cannot figure out why he would have, dream or not, murdered an unknown stranger. Moreover in the fresh light of day he cannot figure it out when many parts, too many parts, of the dream wind up being reality. So said clerk takes his problem to a very convenient brother-in-law who just happens to be a homicide detective (played by Paul Kelly). After a ton and one half of skepticism the detective finally sees that this is one bank clerk who is in serious trouble. And solving this riddle is what makes this thing kind of twist and turn a little before the real bad guy is caught.

And the real bad guy, or rather his maniacal plan of operation, is what could have made this thing jump better than it did. Seems a Mayfair swell, a very jealous Mayfair swell, with a young wandering wife finds out she has been keeping company with someone else on his time. So he, the Mayfair swell Mr. Belknap by name, sees red but knowing that crime doesn't pay or rather that he doesn't want to pay for the crime sets our bank clerk up, sets him up big-time, through hypnosis. That little off-beat technique makes all the difference in the world. And the theme that could have better explored the social tensions in this film as we know all too well as of late- the rich don't want o pay for nothing from taxes to their crimes-never gets it full workout. Why? Well, easy on that one. Something that also has become a mantra in this space. Crime, well crime in crime noir, doesn't pay. Just ask our Mayfair swell.

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