SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 385, 8 November 1946, Page 33

SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT

(20th Century-Fox)

ROM Dr. Caligari it is only a short step, in subjectmatter if not in treatment, to this latest example of the "psychological" cycle. Again

amnesia is the theme, applied this time to a gangster melodrama involving a marine who has lost his memory in the war and who goes through the story trying to find it as well as a suitcase containing two million dollars in notes which somebody hid three years before under a pier. Though I cannot help wishing that certain producers would themselves become victims of amnesia and so forget the whole business and give us a rest, this is an ingenious and well-made film of its type, and I confess I enjoyed it more than Spellbound. Hitchcock might have made it, and it’s only a pity he didn’t: if he had he might have tightened up the suspense in places and taken a few kinks out of the plot; but there are some sequences he could scarcely have improved on. It may be complained that the action is occasionally obscure, but part of the fun in this kind of mystery is that you should be kept in the dark; and since the hero is himself unaware of his own identity as well as of that of the criminal he is trying to track down, it is only reasonable that the audience should share some of his perplexity. I shall not therefore reveal what is a well-kept, and well-con-ceived, secret, but shall content myself with mentioning that John Hodiak does an excellent job as the bewildered exserviceman, obsessed by the dread that when he does discover who he really is he won’t like himself a bit; that Nancy Guild, a newcomer, is a distinct acquisition to the film (and also to Hollywood) as the girl who lightens his way a little; that the director knows considerably more than the first thing about lighting, camera-angles, and the use of apparently innocent details to create a sense of menace; and that among the interesting characters who crop up at every stage of the hero’s journey into fear are such excellent people as Lloyd Nolan, Richard Conte, and Josephine Hutchinson-and best of all that delightfully sinister chap, Fritz Kortner. It is a long time since we have seen Mr. Kortner-the last occasion may have been when he portrayed Abdul the Damned-and it is indeed a pleasure now to welcome him back.