I thought that I had seen Somewhere in the Night before, at least parts of it. I had what I thought was a distinct memory of the DVD not working past a certain point and being disappointed that I couldn’t finish watching the film itself or listening to Eddie Muller’s audio commentary. (The audio commentary still wouldn’t work this time, not for very long.) But, like George Taylor, the main character, I don’t remember much about this film apparently! It all seemed new to me, except the last scenes with Police Lieutenant Donald Kendall, played by Lloyd Nolan. Maybe those were the only parts that I saw . . . in film clips maybe?
In any case, the film opens with George Taylor waking up in an army hospital during World War II. His face is bandaged and his jaw is wired shut. He doesn’t remember a thing: not how he got there, not even his name. When someone calls him George Taylor, the name doesn’t make sense to him, but he adopts it anyway. He is transferred to a hospital in the United States and finds a nasty letter among the few personal effects the doctors and nurses saved for him. He refuses to admit that he cannot remember who he is, and he doesn’t want to believe that he is the person who wrote the nasty letter.
Once Taylor is discharged from the U.S. hospital, he starts investigating who he really is. Nothing and no one look familiar to him, and he doesn’t look familiar to anyone else. He has very few clues to work with: a briefcase that someone saved for him when he entered the war and the personal effects given to him in the hospital and still in his possession. Inside the briefcase, he discovers a gun and a note. The note is from Larry Cravat, and it explains that Cravat deposited $5,000 into an account for Taylor. Taylor still doesn’t know much, and he doesn’t recognize the name Larry Cravat.
Other people are looking for Cravat, and they are not happy that George Taylor is back from the war asking questions about him. When Cravat disappeared, $2 million of Nazi money that had been smuggled into the United States also disappeared. Someone named Anzelmo is looking for the $2 million, and his henchman Hubert beats Taylor to find out what he knows. Anzelmo orders Taylor dumped at Christy Smith’s house. Smith happens to be the woman Taylor ran into while trying to escape Anzelmo’s gang. (It’s an odd coincidence that is only partially explained later in the film.)
Taylor is paranoid. He sees a man standing outside Christy Smith’s window on the opposite curb and rushes out to confront him. The man insists that he was just taking a walk in his own neighborhood. Taylor returns to the house and, after some hesitancy, eventually confides in Smith:
• George Taylor: “I think I’ll go now.”
• Christy Smith: “How far do you think you’ll get?”
• Taylor: “The nearest foxhole maybe. They’ll be watching my hotel—all sorts of people.”
• Smith: “What’s your name?”
• Taylor: “Taylor. George Taylor. It’s all over town. I may run for dogcatcher. Look, I’ve gotta talk to somebody. I’ll go crazy if I don’t talk to somebody.”
• Smith: “I’m somebody.”
• Taylor: “I think you are. What do you know about amnesia?”
• Smith: “Not much. Something that happens to you. You forget who you are or where you belong. Isn’t that it?”
• Taylor: “Yeah. Every now and then you read about it in the newspaper—a guy named John Doe was picked up in a fog. Never happens to anybody you know. It happened to me. Yeah. For all I know, I might have been born six months ago. That’s a joke because six months ago I woke up in a hospital. That’s where babies are born, in a hospital. Only this was different. It was in the South Pacific, and it wasn’t the maternity ward. My jaw was wired, and I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t ask who I was. I—I nearly went nuts. . . .”
This conversation between George Taylor and Christy Smith sums up all the fear, isolation, and mental anguish that the film addresses. But I highlighted some of the dialogue in purple because these particular lines struck me as rather humorous. Somewhere in the Night does have some humorous touches, maybe not laugh-out-loud funny, but the humor is there nonetheless. No matter how many times I read these lines of dialogue, they strike me as a bit odd. Funny-odd? No-one-would-say-them-odd? I’m not sure, but they trip me up—in a good way—every time.
Taylor spends the rest of the film trying to untangle what he can of his predicament and his previous life. The film is packed with almost all the elements of noir: betrayal, postwar disillusionment, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), amnesia, smuggling, theft, murder. The only element missing is a femme fatale.
Somewhere in the Night also has a lot of familiar faces in its cast, especially for fans of film noir and 1950s and 1960s television: Lloyd Nolan, who plays the detective Michael Shayne in the Shayne series of films from Twentieth Century Fox; Richard Conte, who is a film noir regular; Harry Morgan, who starred in the television show Dragnet; Sheldon Leonard, who produced many television shows, including The Dick Van Dyke Show (one of my all-time favorites); and Whit Bissel, who is one of those instantly recognizable character actors whose name is probably unknown to most.
The audio commentary by Eddie Muller on the DVD cut out after about fifteen minutes, so I cannot say that I listened to much of it. But what I could listen to was packed with interesting information and tidbits. Here are just a few points from the first fifteen minutes:
◊ The opening scene is quite effective. The film quickly establishes the World War II backdrop with the use of an army hospital and the sound effects of artillery in the background.
◊ Most genuine films noir are told from the perspective of one character. In this case, the story is told from the perspective of George Taylor.
◊ George Taylor’s face is reconstructed after his war injury, but Muller wonders why the doctors bothered to keep the moustache! (I missed the point about plastic surgery on first viewing, even though George Taylor’s face is covered in bandages when viewers first see him. I apparently suspended my disbelief from the moment the credits started rolling! Facial reconstruction surgery explains why no one recognizes Taylor while he conducts his own investigation throughout the film.)
◊ In spite of what many might believe, Somewhere in the Night is not the first film to feature amnesia. The 1942 film Street of Chance was the first film noir to do so. Also released in 1942 was a film called Crossroads, which also features amnesia. By 1946, amnesia was a common theme in films.
◊ Viewers have to suspend their disbelief (I know I did!): They are asked to believe that George Taylor will not reveal that he has no idea who he is. That is not likely to happen in real life, according to Muller, who also maintains that he would be screaming about a loss of memory if he had been in Taylor’s place!
I really enjoy Muller’s DVD commentaries, and I was disappointed that the DVD I borrowed cut out so soon into this one. But I did get to see the film itself, a plus because I have been looking forward to it since I first heard about it. Somewhere in the Night didn’t disappoint. The acting is great; the narrative has a lot of surprises, which is always a plus for any story, print or film; and the little touches of humor add a bit of complexity that is not typical for film noir.
I almost forgot: According to Muller, a lot of inside jokes are included courtesy of its director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Another of the story’s details that I personally found amusing, in addition to some witty dialogue, was that George Taylor discovers that he was a private detective before the war, before he lost his memory. That’s a great plot point for a film noir character with amnesia!
June 1, 1946, release date • Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz • Screenplay by Howard Dimsdale, Joseph L. Mankiewicz • Based on the story “The Lonely Journey” by Marvin Borowsky • Music by David Buttolph • Edited by James B. Clark • Cinematography by Norbert Brodine
John Hodiak as George W. Taylor • Nancy Guild as Christy Smith • Lloyd Nolan as Police Lieutenant Donald Kendall • Richard Conte as Mel Phillips • Whit Bissell as John, the bartender at The Cellar • Harry Morgan as the attendant at Elite Baths • Fritz Lortner as Anzelmo (aka Dr. Oracle) • Margo Woode as Phyllis • Sheldon Leonard as Sam • Josephine Hutchinson as Elizabeth Conroy • Lou Nova as Hubert • Jeff Corey as the bank teller
Distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox Corporation • Produced by Twentieth Century-Fox Corporation
No comments:
Post a Comment