Nightmare

Nightmare

Nightmare

Nightmare

Moviecut—Nightmare

Let's begin by getting the few squawks out of the way; for no discernible reason the story is set in New Orleans yet not one single person in the cast employs a Southern accent or indeed anything other than an Eastern accent of the kind we'd expect to find in Manhattan. New Orleans of course is celebrated as the cradle of jazz and protagonist Kevin McCarthy is indeed a muso BUT he plays clarinet in a large SWING orchestra - led, in fact, by the great Billy May who also has a speaking role and plays trumpet, as he did in real life. Nothing wrong with that, in fact in my case it's a bonus EXCEPT New Orleans is synonymous with Dixieland and a Swing outfit on Bourbon Street would be like Turnip Greens at the Four Seasons. Those cavils to one side we're left with a taut, nourish entry which holds the attention all the way.

Maxwell Shane remakes his own 1947 film Fear in the Night but with a better known cast and more money. Adapted from Cornell Woolrich's novel, story has Stan Grayson (Kevin McCarthy) as a New Orleans clarinetist who dreams he has committed a murder in a heavily mirrored room. Upon waking he finds clues that suggest he actually may have killed a man and frantically turns to his police detective brother-in-law, Rene Bressard (Edward G. Robinson), for help. But it doesn't look good for Stan... Fear in the Night is a good film, and so is this, but if you have seen the earlier version then this feels very much perfunctory. The opening titles are superb, as melted candle wax plays host to the roll call shown in moody dissolves. We jump into Grayson's dream, again this is very well constructed on noirish terms, and from there on in it's a competently crafted visual film noir picture with good tension and splendid jazzy interludes. However, nothing else makes it stand out, it just sort of exists as an exercise in late noir cycle film making, a pic that doesn't want to even try to push boundaries. The cast are dependable in performances, but nothing to really grab the attention, though Shane does work near wonders to cloak the characters in various levels of paranoia or suspicious machinations. New Orleans locales are a bonus, with cinematographer Joseph Biroc excelling at sweaty close-ups and the utilisation of shadows as foreboding presence's. It all resolves itself in a haze of improbability, but as most film noir fans will tell you, that's actually OK. Yet this is still a film that's far from essential viewing for the like minded noir crowd. More so if you happened to have seen the 1947 version first. 6/10

Copyright 1956 by Pine-Thomas-Shane Productions. Released through United Artists. New York opening at the Palace: 11 May 1956. U.S. release: June 1956. U.K. release: 4 June 1956. Australian release: 18 January 1957. Sydney opening at the Palace (ran 2 weeks). 89 minutes. Cut to 80 minutes in Australia. SYNOPSIS: New Orleans jazz musician Stan Grayson dreams that he stabs a man to death in a mirrored room and wakes to find scratches, bruises, and other indications that it was not a dream. He relates the incident to his brother-in-law, police detective René Bressard, who assures him it was a dream. The thought that he may be a killer haunts him, as does a strange, exotic tune that runs through his mind. He prowls the jazz bars on Bourbon Street, hoping to find someone who is familiar with the song but with no success. Hoping to cure Stan's melancholia, René invites him to picnic with his sister and girl friend, Gina. A sudden rainstorm forces them into the car, but its windshield wipers are broken and, in an effort to find shelter, Stan directs them to a large, empty mansion, which is the house in his dream. COMMENT: Maxwell Shane's own remake of his Fear in the Night (1947) is still a modestly budgeted affair, though it benefits from Biroc's glossy lighting and a bit of location shooting, plus of course its much stronger cast line-up. In fact, Robinson's performance is only a shade less than his usual punch and Connie Russell (who has two songs) is one of the most attractive heroines we have come across in years. Marian Carr is also effective in her single sequence as a bar pick-up. But the film suffers from padding. We don't mind the songs, but the efforts to build up Robinson's part (which is actually a secondary one) and the attenuation of some of hero Kevin McCarthy's scenes and the footage with the hero's sister make for rather wearisome viewing. Still Gage Clarke has his moments and the story is moderately suspenseful. The direction for the most part is routine though there are one or two glimpses of talent, but the nightmare sequence itself is disappointingly pedestrian.

In the role right before he made a comeback of sorts in The Ten Commandments, Edward G. Robinson stars in Nightmare where he solves both a crime and a particular nightmare that Kevin McCarthy is going through. You see McCarthy thinks he killed and Robinson is a New Orleans homicide detective. Kevin plays a mean jazz clarinet in Billy May's Orchestra where girlfriend Connie Russell sings. McCarthy who scored with the same kind of role in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers thinks he's killed someone in an old mansion in a room with a lot of mirrors. There's a man and a woman in the same recurring dream. Like his Body Snatchers part, McCarthy is trapped in a Nightmare and by circumstances he can't control. Of course the very cynical homicide detective Robinson doesn't really believe him, but he's going along for the sake of Virginia Christine, Robinson's wife and McCarthy's sister. In the end it becomes clear enough though the manipulator of the events is a character introduced after Robinson really begins an investigation. Nightmare is a decent enough noir thriller, but it really does look shot on the cheap with real New Orleans and country Louisiana locations. Not on the to 10 list of any of the principals.

Kevin McCarthy stars as a musician who wakes up one morning to find tangible evidence of something he thought he'd done in a dream. Things really gets going when good old Edward G. Robinson appears as the musician's brother-in-law who also just happens to be a police detective. There's just something about Eddie G. that compels us to watch him, whatever he's in. McCarthy's character, Stan, thinks he may have committed a murder, and is tortured by the fact that he has no recollection of doing so, except in his "nightmare".He can't reconcile what he knows as reality with what he remembers from his dream and the evidence he found afterwards. (Intriguingly, a button and an odd-looking key.) Oh, there's also a few female characters, none of them of the fatale variety. One of them is just a pick-up in a seedy all-night bar (interesting and kind of fun scene, though), the other two are his sister and his "girlfriend". I put girlfriend in quotation marks because Stan doesn't seem to have much regard for the poor girl, who's a jazz singer and devoted to him. Poor Gina, Stan has not the least interest in confiding his troubles to her, or in fact talking to her at all, as far as I could tell. He's always telling her he'll get back to her later, when he's straightened some things out. Some noirs have a smart and sympathetic girlfriend or secretary (who of course later becomes the girlfriend) who helps the main character sort out his troubles, but Nightmare isn't one of those. It's all about Edward G. and his crime-solving abilities. But who's complaining when Edward G. solves or even commits a crime in any movie? The story is set and filmed on location in New Orleans, which is a major strength of the film. There's one scene where Stan goes on a desperate search through the nightclubs and all-night bars of the city, trying to find a musician who's heard the mysterious melody he heard in his nightmare. I love all the neon lights flashing on and off, proclaiming the alluring names of the nightclubs - scenes like this are what noir is made of. Another memorable scene is when Stan, the long-suffering Gina, and Edward G.Robinson and his wife (Stan's sister) go on a picnic and get caught in a rainstorm. They take refuge in a deserted house, where they light a fire and make themselves tea ! It just struck me as funny that they were making themselves so much at home in a complete stranger's house. Now, there is a reason for this, but that would be spoiler territory.

Kevin McCarthy has a terrible nightmare one night, in which he finds himself inside a room with walls and doors covered in mirrors. He sees what looks like a burglary and tries to prevent it, but in the process kills the burglar. Panicking, he hides the body in one of the mirrored closets, before waking up in a cold sweat. When McCarthy finds a button and a key from his nightmare in his pocket the next day, he fears it might've been than a bad dream. Soon after, on a picnic with his girl Connie Russell, his sister Virginia Christine and brother-in-law Edward G. Robinson, they come across an abandoned house. In the house they find the mirrored room from McCarthy's dream, including a burned safe. And when they find out there's been a murder committed, the nightmare has truly come to life... Robinson, a homicide detective, is convinced McCarthy is guilty but after a failed suicide attempt by McCarthy and a crucial piece of information that he remembers, Robinson decides to look deeper into the matter. This is the 2nd film noir based on the Cornell Woolrich story 'And So To Death'. The first one, 'Fear In The Night', was made in 1947 and was directed by Maxwell Shane. And lo and behold, so is this one! Both movies are very alike and both are well worth watching. This one's set in New Orleans, and has the appropriate 50s jazzy soundtrack. McCarthy ('Invasion Of The Body Snatchers') gives a good if not great performance as a man who's possibly guilty of murder while Robinson ('Double Indemnity') almost phones it in here, which still means he's better than anybody else in the movie, hah... Russell and Christine have very little to do besides being 'the women', neither portray particularly strong women, altho Russell does some nice singing in this movie (if that's her real voice, I have no idea). Aside from fairly minor differences, the main ones being a difference in location and the climax in this one involves a lake and not a car chase, the movies are too alike really. I am not sure what Shane's idea was with this version, the original is a good noir as-is, and so is this one, but it doesn't improve or add anything really. He still does a decent job tho, but with the main story intact, it feels too much like a rehash. DoP Joseph Biroc ('Cry Danger', 'The Garment Jungle') does a good job, not just with the dream sequence but overall the movie is nicely shot. Unfortunately, and also like 'Fear...', this movie seems to be in public domain hell, the copy I saw is in better shape than the version I saw of 'Fear...' (which was really bad) but still washed out. I would love to see cleaned up copies of both, maybe on a 'double feature' DVD? Just don't watch them back-to-back. 7/10