For Barbara Stanwyck's hundredth birthday (July 16th), TCM ran 24 hours of movies in which she starred (and she was a star for a long time across an array of genres). The one I watched was "Clash by Night," directed by Fritz Lang (1952). It is best known as the first movie in which Marilyn Monroe had a starring role (though she was better and more prominent in the better noir "Don't Bother to Knock" and late screwball comedy "Monkey Business" that followed within that year). During the shooting of "Clash by Night," Monroe's earlier nude calendar photo was connected to the rising star.

Fritz Lang, who pretty much invented cinema noir with "M" in Germany in 1931 (and spy thrillers back in 1920, etc.) and made some memorable noirs in Hollywood after fleeing Dr. Goebbels's offer to head German film production in 1933, was impressed by the professionalism of Stanwyck and vexed by the unprofessionalism of Monroe. Alas for us, neither was cast very well, nor were the male leads, Robert Ryan as the romantic male lead and Paul Douglas as a Sicilian-American fishing-boat captain. And the source material, a play by Clifford Odets (Golden Boy) was cliched at best.

For me the movie deteriorates once characters start appearing and declaiming. Before that, there is a de facto documentary last roughly five minutes about Monterey, California's fishing fleet and canning factories before the sardines were fished out. This is great (especially for those who have been to postmodern Monterey in search of the Cannery Row of John Steinbeck), and I like the other scenes of waves breaking on rocks throughout the movie.

But I find it impossible to believe that Barbara Stanwyck (playing Mae Doyle) could have failed to make it in the larger world and slunk back to the town she fled. Paul Douglas is believable as a lug, but he had a very urban (not to mention East Coast) persona (Jerry D'Amato). A simple man of the earth (well, man of the sea) in touch with benevolent Nature? Douglas? No way. (Shaped by a heritage of sexism, however, is no problem for him.)

I guess that Monroe (whose character is named Peggy) really did work in a factory, though not a cannery. And as a pal to Stanwyck? A ward maybe, but not a pal. Robert Ryan was closer to type as Earl Pfeiffer, a self-hating binge-drinker who goes after his best friend's wife partly to have more reasons to hate himself (which is a way of saying there is no Ryan-Stanwyck chemistry).

Despite some night scenes, the movie is a soap opera, not a noir.

Plot-spoiler alert

If Ryan's and Stanwyck's characters plotted to kill Douglas's it "Clash by Night" have been a noir (but unlikely to rival "Double Indemnity," Billy Wilder's film with Stanwyck as a blonde femme fatale and Fred MacMurray as her eager dupe). No doubt with pressure from the censorship (Production Code) enforcers, the movie instead is yet another piece of advocating foregiveness. From 1934-64 in Hollywood, love did not conquer all, marriage did (even if married couples could not be shown in bed together or even be seen to have double beds...). Adulterers either died or begged forgiveness and were taken back. That was the alternative the code allowed--there were no other options. Mae has learned how empty and meaningless extramarital adventures can be, and once she crawls back, her big-hearted, earthy (seagoing) husband takes her back.... And the waves of "destiny" break on the rocks. Pardon my yawn!

End plot-spoiler alert

Apparently, Odets's play was far more focused on the social problems of unemployment during the Great Depression than on the soap opera machinations. Lang's pictorial skills were put at the service of the soap opera and the stars did their best with roles that were uncomfortable fits. (And Douglas and Lang were reportedly less patient with Monroe's showing up late and flubbing take after take than Stanwyck, even though Stanwyck was famously best on the first take.)

Keith Andes as Mae's brother and Peggy's beau is wooden and has the aptly bland name of "Joe." I guess that J. Carrol Naish is successful as the malign uncle (Vince), urging Jerry to violence and upholding the macho codes of "the old country" while keeping him supplied with free booze.

Warner DVD marketing "Clash by Night" as a noir* raises expectations that are not met (there are no fatalities, let alone any murders or mysteries or shady dealings or undercover cops; plus, despite the title, most of the scenes are daytime ones), as George's review shows. It does have fine work by one of the great noir cinematographers, Nicholas Musuraca (Out of the Past, The Hitch-Hiker, Lang's Blue Gardenia), though.

"Clash by Night" served to plump up Monroe's slender resume at the time, but is not among Lang's or Stanwyck's or Ryan's or Douglas's or Monroe's best films.

------

* See http://www.epinions.com/content_231846153860 for my attempt to delineate the prototype of what a film noir is. ("Clash by Night" has ingredients 1 and 7. I don't regard Stanwyck's role herein as a femme fatale--not only because, as already noted, no one dies.)

My Fritz Lang writeoff remains open. See http://www.epinions.com/content_165604462212 for a list of other Lang films I and a few others epinionators have reviewed.


© 2007, Stephen O. Murray





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