The Long Night (1947)

"Why do you want to hang out your old wash for me? I'm not pumpin ya." Joe (Henry Fonda)

Another RKO Radio Picture that has been rescued from obscurity by Kino Video, The Long Night is the story of a desperate man, holed up in a one-room apartment with the police surrounding it just outside.

The movie is interesting because it takes a different look at things than your typical Hollywood movie. The production team were expatriate Europeans and The Long Night was a homage to the great French cinema of the 1930s. In fact a remake of the French 1939 film Le Jour se Ieve (Daybreak), The Long Night considers the dashed hopes of a working class stiff (Henry Fonda) whose first attempt at love has been smirched by a slick urbane unctuous magician named Maximilian (Vincent Price).

I guess a word about the production team would be in order. Production was by the Hakim Brothers, Egyptians who had moved to France; Direction was by Anatole Litvak, a Russian Jew who had similarly moved to France; Set Design was by Eugene Lourie also from Russia, who had moved to France. All of these worked in the French film industry and had worked with Jean Renoir.

As Set Designer, Lourie built many miniatures of the factory town that were used as backgrounds rather than painted backdrops as usual. Sets were also extensively constructed rather than shooting on locations. The result is a magical reality to the video that looks quite different from the usual movie. For cinematography they got the best in the book, Sol Polito, who was the most important cinematographer with Warner Bros for many years, lensing The Adventures of Robin Hood and all the important movies, black and white and color. Robin Hood is still held up as a text book example of the proper use of Technicolor to this day.

As mentioned, The Long Night is set in a rather unglamorous blue collar setting with smoke belching chimneys and railroad sidings quite close to the dwelling areas.

The movie opens with a view of several industrial cities in the Ohio - Pennsylvania area and says it could be any one of them. The action begins when a well-dressed man is shot in the top floor apartment of a blue collar boarding house. The police come but the room's occupant fires through the door initiating a stand-off. We enter the room and spend the next 90 minutes with Joe (Henry Fonda) who goes over the back story by means of various flashbacks.

The movie has a very good story that is atmospheric and keeps you on edge for about 85% of the movie, but they unfortunately allow it to fizzle at the end.

The movie benefits from a strong cast with Henry Fonda as the protagonist, Barbara Bel Geddes as Jo Ann, his love interest and the pivot of the triangle; Vincent Price as the womanizing city slicker magician; and Ann Dvorak as the gal who has been around the block a couple of times who puts Fonda wise to Vincent's tricks. Price is really able to ham it up yet maintain a creepy side to his character that repels you; in short a great performance from him. The Dimitri Tiompkin score is heavily based on classics but it occasionally thunders out at you heavy-handedly indicating the proper emotions you should be experiencing.

The DVD is from Kino Video and it contains a digitally remastered copy of the well preserved 97 minute black and white movie. It has a few extras, including two scenes from the French predecessor Le Jour se Ieve which are very similar to the remakes'. It also contains a text essay on production design and a photo gallery of the posters, press releases, and still photos from the movie. Available for purchase separately, it is also included in the Kino five title set Film Noir: The Dark Side of Hollywood for considerable savings.

This is a good one that hasn't been seen too often.

More good Henry Fonda pictures -

Jesse James
My Darling Clementine
The Ox-bow Incident

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV