SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT

SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT (1946). Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Screenplay by Howard Dimsdale and Mankiewicz. 

 "Time doesn't change. it goes on and on but it doesn't change. I know because I've watched it. Nights. Days. Nights. Always the same. Nights are always gray. Days can have different colors, but the nights are dark and empty. Only people change. They grow old and ugly -- and pitiful. I've made believe so much for so long. That I was alive. That I had friends. That I wasn't dead. I wanted so much to make believe that somebody loved me." 

An amnesiac WW 2 veteran named George Taylor (John Hodiak) learns that someone named "Larry Cravat" has put $5000 for him in a bank account but can't remember why or even who the man is. So he begins a search for the elusive Cravat, encountering a pretty singer named Christy (Nancy Guild) who takes a shine to him and vice versa. During his search Taylor encounters assorted thugs, a villain named Anzelmo (Fritz Kortner) and a hard-boiled dame named Phyllis (Margo Woode). After she kisses an unresponsive Taylor, Phyllis says "I've had more fun drinking a bromo seltzer." (Sheldon Leonard has a notable turn as Phyllis' husband.) Lloyd Nolan is a police officer who's also looking for Cravat -- and George Taylor. 

John Hodiak

This interesting mystery has an intriguing plot and good dialogue, and is well-acted by Hodiak and everyone else. Woode is snappy as Phyllis, and Guild very appealing as Christy. (Guild gets to lip sync to a very nice torch song entitled "I'm in the Middle of Nowhere.") The cast stand-out, however, is Josephine Hutchinson as desperately lonely Elizabeth, who is very affecting in her brief scene wherein she speaks the dialogue quoted above. Somewhere in the Night is a snappy, absorbing picture, even if its wind-up is a little predictable and disappointing, but it has well-realized characters and memorable performances. Mankiewicz's direction is only routine for this type of material, however. This was Guild's first film; she also appeared in Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man. She makes a much better impression in this film. 

Verdict: Suspenseful and different. ***.

CAPTAIN KIDD

Charles Laughton as Captain Kidd

CAPTAIN KIDD (1945). Director: Rowland V. Lee.

Captain William Kidd (Charles Laughton) presents himself to King William III (Henry Daniell) and is assigned to keep pirates from attacking a British ship filled with booty. Kidd, of course, has other ideas about what to do with that ship. Kidd gathers a crew of cutthroats under sentence and offers them a pardon if they serve on board his ship. One of these men, Adam Mercy (Randolph Scott), hides a secret: that Kidd murdered his father. When the British ship is destroyed and stripped of her bounty, the beautiful Lady Anne (Barbara Britton) is taken aboard -- she and Adam will form a romantic alliance, but getting away from Captain Kidd may not be so easy. 

Laughton with John Carradine

Captain Kidd is a good movie with a great lead performance. The movie has humor, and Laughton makes the most of it without ever descending into parody. Although he appears briefly, Daniell is wonderful as the king, and John Carradine is also notable as a not-so-friendly associate of Kidd's. Reginald Owen also has a nice turn as Shadwell, a gentleman's gentleman who has been hired to remove all the considerable rough edges from Kidd -- who desires a peerage -- and who winds up allying himself with Adam and Lady Anne. Although they have a lot to do, Scott and Britton are outclassed in this company. Barbara Britton became better-known for her television work on Mr. and Mrs. North with Richard Denning. Gilbert Roland is one of Kidd's crew, as is Sheldon Leonard, whom I didn't even recognize. 

Verdict: Heavily fictionalized but entertaining look at the infamous alleged pirate with an absolutely marvelous Laughton. ***.  

ANOTHER THIN MAN

Baby Nicky and li'l Asta

ANOTHER THIN MAN (1939). Director: W. S. Van Dyke II.

Back in New York with their new son, Nicky, and little Asta in tow, Nick and Nora (William Powell and Myrna Loy) are summoned to the Long Island estate of Colonel MacFay (C. Aubrey Smith). MacFay has been receiving weird death threats from an old employee named Church (Sheldon Leonard) and hopes to have Nick's protection. Naturally, as in most of these detective movies, the threatened man is murdered under the disinterested hero's nose, and the rest of the movie is concerned with finding out who done it. Another Thin Man is quite talky, but entertaining, with an intricate script and a denouement that is truly a surprise. Members of the supporting cast (as well as suspects in certain cases) include Virginia Grey [Jeanne Eagels] as MacFay's adopted daughter; Patric Knowles as her secret fiance; Tom Neal [Bruce Gentry] as a man carrying a torch for Grey; Otto Kruger as the detective on the case; Ruth Hussey as a kind of nanny; Muriel Hutchison as Church's paramour, among others, all giving adroit performances. The business with ex-cons being delighted to see Nick even though he sent them up the river gets tiresome, and leads into a party for little Nicky with the hoods each bringing their own baby! (Don't blink or you'll miss Shemp Howard.) Some of the subsequent victims certainly don't deserve to be murdered, but there's never any sympathy for them. However, there's a swell scene with Powell interacting with Marjorie Main [The Law and the Lady] as a landlady, and the ending is a pip! The killer in this is especially conniving and heartless.

Verdict: Things look up for the series with this entry. ***.

CITY WITHOUT MEN

CITY WITHOUT MEN (1943). Director: Sidney Salkow.

Tom Adams (Michael Duane of Redhead from Manhattan) is framed for  picking up Japanese in a boat, and wrongly convicted of collaborating with the enemy or something and sent to jail for several years. His fiancee, Nancy (Linda Darnell) not only vows to wait for him, but moves into a woman's residence right next to the prison where other wives and girlfriends wait patiently for their men to be released. The husband of the owner of the house, Maria (Sara Allgood) is in jail for life, and in the film's best scene, another wife, Mrs. Slade (Rosemary DeCamp), nearly collapses when her husband is executed at midnight. Other residents of the house include brassy Billie (Glenda Farrell), Winnie (Doris Dudley), Dora (Margaret Hamilton), and high-hattin' Gwen (Leslie Brooks of The Secret of the Whistler), who is dating Mr. Peters (Don DeFore) and hopes to learn where her husband (Sheldon Leonard) hid some money. Edgar Buchanan plays a shady lawyer who is ostensibly trying to help Nancy, but spends most of her money on booze. This is a "concept" movie that seems to have been cobbled together from cliches from other movies, and it's never convincing, becoming fairly ridiculous towards the end. Darnell is fine -- odd that she was cast in this bad "B" movie -- and Allgood, Farrell, DeCamp, and DeFore give very good performances as well.Years later Salkow directed Vincent Price in Twice-Told Tales.

Verdict: Not utterly terrible but not worth the time it takes to tell. **.

TROCADERO

TROCADERO (1944). Director: William Nigh.

This musical purports to tell the true post-prohibition story behind the famous Trocadero nightclub, making the owner of a humble restaurant a man named Tony Rocadero (Charles Calvert), who has adopted a girl, Judy (Rosemary Lane) and a boy named Johnny (Johnny Downs) before he promptly expires after getting hit by a car. Johnny goes off to war while Judy, with the help of manager Sam Wallace (Ralph Morgan), runs the restaurant, which is eventually changed from "Tony Rocadero's" to the snazzier "Trocadero." Both siblings have romantic problems: Judy is pursued with equal fervor by agent Mickey Jones (Sheldon Leonard) and swing bandleader Spike Nelson (Dick Purcell), while Johnny is engaged to a very snooty gal named Marge (Marjorie Manners), who is embarrassed by what he does for a living. The actors are all very pleasant and professional but what puts this movie over is the music and dancing. Highlights include Downs demonstrating his awesome tap-dancing ability to a crowd of Marge's relatives, and Lane's lovely rendition of the fine ballad, "Trying to Forget." There are other bouncy numbers and the whole production is cheerfully entertaining if borderline dumb.

Verdict: If you dig the music of the era ... ***.

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN (1951). Director: Charles Lamont.

Recent graduates from detective school, Bud and Lou run into an escaped con, Tommy Nelson (Arthur Franz), who is wanted for murder but claims he was framed. A scientist acquaintance of his girlfriend Helen (Nancy Guild) has John Griffin's formula for invisibility, but warns Nelson that it's too dangerous to take. Naturally, Nelson ignores the warning as the cops close in. Eventually Lou winds up becoming a boxer (with Nelson's invisible fists helping him out) known as Louie the Looper. Adele Jergens adds some spice, as usual, as fight promoter Sheldon Leonard's moll, doing her best to seduce a little-boyish Costello. Leonard is the same as ever, but William Frawley is fun as the detective who's after Nelson. Nancy Guild makes little impression as the "good gal." The special effects by David S. Horsley are as good as John P. Fulton's in Universal's previous "invisible" pictures.

Verdict: Cute, if minor A & C comedy. **1/2.

HIT THE ICE

HIT THE ICE (1943). Director: Charles Lamont.

Bud and Lou are photographers who inadvertently wind up consorting with bank robbers and being accused of their crime. They and the real crooks hot foot it to Sun Valley, where there are further complications. Oddly, the best thing about the movie are the snappy numbers performed by Ginny Simms -- who sings as good as she looks -- who plays Marcia, and Johnny Long and his Orchestra (including the bizarre "Slap Happy Polka.") Mantan Moreland has a brief funny bit with Lou at a train station. Sheldon Leonard plays the head crook and Joe Sawyer and Marc Lawrence are gang members. Patric Knowles is a doctor and Elyse Knox the nurse who's looking after a supposedly sick Leonard. An interesting bit has Lou winding up in a single bed in-between a husband and wife after he crashes through a wall. What's interesting about it is that even in the following decade Lucy and Ricky had separate beds in their bedroom, not one.

Verdict: Primarily for A & C addicts, but easy to take if nothing special. **1/2.