Somewhere in the Night

1946

Action / Crime / Drama / Film-Noir / Mystery / Romance

12
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 59% · 9 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 59% · 500 ratings
IMDb Rating 7.0/10 10 3874 3.9K

noir amnesia war veteran gangster film noir los angeles, california

Plot summary

George Taylor returns from WWII with amnesia. Back home in Los Angeles, while trying to track down his old identity, he stumbles onto a three year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million.

Director

Joseph L. Mankiewicz Photo
Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Top cast

John Ireland Photo
John Ireland as Thug
Richard Conte Photo
Richard Conte as Mel Phillips
Forbes Murray Photo
Forbes Murray as Bank Executive
Josephine Hutchinson Photo
Josephine Hutchinson as Elizabeth Conroy
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
923.44 MB
1010*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 50 min
Seeds 1
1.66 GB
1504*1072
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 50 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by JB-12

Early Joseph L. Mankiewicz film noir

The trademark of any Joseph L. Mankiewicz film is screenplay. It is often sharp and crackling as in his award winning "A Letter To Three Wives" and "All About Eve". In this Mankiewicz's second directoral effort the seeds of his future successes are sown.John Hodiak plays a wounded marine who wakes up in a hospital not knowing who he is, but finding among his possessions 2 letters, one from a woman telling him what a cad he is and another from a friend of his that will lead him down a path lined with several murders, 2 million dollars and a couple of good looking women.While "Somewhere In The Night" sounds like any one of the many detective thrillers of the 40s, it is lifted from the routine is the script which has a distinct Mankiewicz ring to itHis touch is evident in several places, including meetings with a seedy fortune teller, superbly played by Fritz Kortner, an atypical cop played by Lloyd Nolan who doesn't understand why "movie cops" always "have their hats on", and a spinster played by Josephine Hutchinson who gives Hodiak a hope when she says she recognizes him.You may or may not figure out the plot. It matters not. The film is an enjoyable one.
Reviewed by secondtake 7 / 10

A restrained but moody, interesting rather than dynamic, film noir

Somewhere in the Night (1948)This has all the gloomy, alienating, nighttime elements of the best film noirs, and it's smack in the central Post War best of it. It even has a director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, known for handling dramatic, emotional situations with both delicacy and power. And it all pays off. Somewhere in the Night follows a man just out of the army suffering amnesia, and he encounters a sordid past of crime he didn't know he had anything to do with. The dilemma of American soldiers coming home changed men, and to a home country so changed it was like a foreign country, is the crux of most noir films, and this one plays into it straighter than most. The twist of true amnesia only makes the crisis of George Taylor more stark. The role is played with subtlety, and some stiffness, by John Hodiak, I think because he is meant to be eternally confused by events (since he remembers nothing) and yet can't show his confusion, so he draws up a blank face. Mankiewicz works this inner problem out on the screen well, though choosing to keep the camera at a distance, as if filming a play sometimes, not a recommended film noir method for style, but it does emphasize the psychology more discretely.The camera-work is stiff, too, as if constrained as much as Taylor is in his amnesia. You won't see many sharp angles up or down, no tilted (dutch angle) frames, little moving camera, and little of the easiest of 1940s camera effects, extreme close ups. All of this makes for a dry look, and for my money, with a plot this sensational, a dull one. This cinematography, by Norbert Brodine sets the tone for the whole movie, and I assume it is at Mankiewicz's request, and it just doesn't compare well to other noirs, to Orson Welles, or to any number of Warner gangster films with similar shadowy subjects. Maybe the most extreme example of this is the long dialog over the crystal ball, where the camera just sits and watches. The lighting and the sets, in general, are dynamic, however, and the acting generally solid. And it has all the hallmarks (not quite clichés) of the genre--thugs at the bar, a nightclub singer with a big heart, a good guy who turns out to be a bad guy, and a cop who is clever and peripheral, like a sentry always ready. The movie is, truly, interesting, and doesn't let up as you have to figure out the puzzle of who did what and why. It won't sweep you off your feet or blow you away, but it will be worth settling quietly into.
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