So Dark the Night (1946)

Very well executed

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Masterpiece!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A Paris detective encounters mysterious murders while on vacation in the French countryside.Some day when I have absolutely nothing to do I'm going to count the number of window shots in this film. I hope I can count that high. Actually, all that imagery pays off with a richly symbolic final shot. The movie itself has a rather sumptuous look for a cheap second feature, a credit to the art department and director Lewis' visual imagination, I suppose. Anyway, it's an interesting little noir with an ironical ending, even if it doesn't reach the suspenseful heights of My Name Is Julia Ross, Lewis' previous movie.I wasn't sure where So Dark was going since it begins in rather leisurely fashion. However, once the apparently motiveless murders occur, the plot thickens into a mystery. Still, the screenplay doesn't really play up the whodunit potential, which it could have. Then too, stronger lead performers, I think, would have helped. Steven Geray made a notable career as a waiter or maitre'd in upscale night spots, but as a detective, his presence is a little thin. Also, I agree with the reviewer who thinks Cheirel a shade too old for the ingénue role.Anyway, Lewis' visual talent is on vivid display, making this a very watchable 70 minutes, even though I'm canceling my next visit to the French countryside.

So Dark The Night poses a tough challenge: It's very hard to write about it in any detail without ruining it for those who haven't yet seen it. Since it remains quite obscure, that includes just about everybody. The movie will strike those familiar with its director Joseph H. Lewis' better known titles in the noir cycle – Gun Crazy, The Big Combo, even My Name Is Julia Ross, which in its brevity it resembles – as an odd choice.For starters, the bucolic French countryside serves as its setting. Steven Geray, a middle-aged detective with the Surété in Paris, sets out for a vacation in the village of Ste. Margot (or maybe Margaux). Quite unexpectedly, he finds himself falling in love with the inkeepers' daughter (Micheline Cheirel), even though she's betrothed to a rough-hewn local farmer. But the siren song of life in Paris is hard to resist, so she agrees to marry him, despite the disparity in their ages, which inevitably becomes the talk of the town. But on the night of their engagement party, she fails to return to the inn. Soon, a hunchback finds her body by the river. Her jealous, jilted lover is the logical suspect, but he, too, is found dead. Then anonymous notes threaten more deaths, which come to pass. For the first time in his career, the bereaved Geray finds himself stumped....A particularly weak script all but does the movie in; it plays like bad Cornell Woolrich crossed with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. But Lewis does this creaky vehicle proud. He takes his time near the beginning, but then the story – and the storytelling – gain momentum (alas, just about the time the script breaks an axle). Burnett Guffey lighted and photographed the film, with an intriguing leitmotif of peering out of and peeping into windows; there's also an effective score by Hugo Friedhofer, who supplied aural menace to many noirs. A good deal of talent has been lavished on So Dark The Night, but at the end it boils down to not much more than a gimmick – and not a very good gimmick at that. It's a one-trick pony of a movie.

Really not much to keep you locked to the screen here. Cassin is not exactly charismatic or intense enough for you to believe his role in that twist (or is it wrench?) of an ending and the supporting cast is as two dimensional as the "French countryside" backdrop. The only thing of interest is how Lewis attempts, somewhat perversely, to employ noir conventions and build suspense in a sun-dappled bucolic landscape. Hey, at least the guy was always mixin' it up! 5/10.

Joseph H. lewis was a great director who could do wonderful films with little money. Maybe that was why Columbia's president Harry Cohn gave him so much freedom to work. So Dark is the Night is an almost noir entry about a French detective on vacation in a little town near Paris who investigates some murders which he was somehow involved. A short and objective cheap movie that does not hide the director's talent and gives Steve Geray a great role. People who want to make unexpensive movies should know this gem.