Fear in the Night (1947)
Directed by Maxwell Shane

Film Review

Maxwell Shane had over fifty screenwriting credits to his name, including Universal's Hand of the Mummy (1940), before he made his directing debut with this intensely atmospheric adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's novella Nightmare - the first in a series of stylish films noirs that Shane helmed in the late 1940s, early '50s.  Fear in the Night marks not only Shane's transition from writer to director but also an auspicious beginning to the screen career of actor DeForest Kelley, who, twenty years later, would be known throughout the world as Dr Leonard McCoy in the sci-fi series Star Trek.  Shane obviously felt he didn't do Woolrich's novel justice, since he later remade it as Nightmare (1956), with Edward G. Robinson and Kevin McCarthy.  It's debatable which is the better film - whilst certainly less polished than the remake, the earlier, low-budget version is arguably more effective in capturing the mood and murkier elements (including a running thread of homoeroticism) of Woolrich's dark and devious novel.

Fear in the Night has all the elements of a gripping noir murder mystery - an ingenious, albeit somewhat contrived plot, a likeable central character losing his grip on reality (Kelley's performance is understated but remarkably effective) and a typically atmospheric design, in which Jack Greenhalgh's eerily oppressive cinematography plays a central part.  As he showed with his subsequent films The Glass Wall (1953) and The Naked Street (1955), Maxwell Shane had a natural flair for film noir and knew how to draw as much tension as possible from a far-fetched narrative which, in lesser hands, would simply have fallen apart at the seams.  It is natural to draw comparisons with Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), which also fed on the obsession with dream interpretation that prevailed in the mid-1940s following a sudden revival of interest in Freud's psychoanalytical theories.  Shane's film isn't as slick as Hitchcock's but it avoids the over-earnest psycho-babble that now undermines Spellbound's credibility and, in plot terms at least, it makes for a more satisfying piece of cinema.

Shane's well-honed screenplay is well-served by its respectable principal cast, with Paul Kelly taking top billing in the kind of tough-guy role in which he excelled, here a no-nonsense cop who goes out on a limb to save DeForest Kelley's skin after the latter is made the fall guy in a double homicide.  (Ironically, twenty years previously, Kelly found himself on the wrong side of the law when he was convicted for the manslaughter of another actor, Ray Raymond.)  The toughness and resilience of Kelly's unsympathetic good guy help to make DeForest Kelley's character appear even more vulnerable, an apparent victim of Fate whose psychological ordeal is palpably rendered by a young actor who clearly has a great future ahead of him.  Those familiar with Kelley's work on the Star Trek series and movies will be shocked by how fragile and haunted he appears in this film, his familiar chiselled features visibly marked by a fear that threatens to engulf him.  The later scenes in which he succumbs to the evil influence of Robert Emmett Keane, who is about as sinister and deadly as a noir villain can be, can hardly fail to chill the blood.  As far as portrayals of paranoia go, it's the real McCoy.

Film Synopsis

Vince Grayson, a modest bank employee, wakes up one morning after dreaming that he stabbed a man to death in an octagonal mirrored room.  To his surprise, he finds bruise marks on his neck and a key identical to the one he saw in his dream.  Suspecting something is amiss, Vince speaks of this to his brother-in-law, Cliff Herlihy, a police officer, but the latter persuades him he is imagining things.  Caught in the rain during a day out in the country with their girlfriend and wife respectively, Vince and Cliff take refuge in a house that is strangely familiar to Vince.  In the house they come across an octagonal room identical to that which Vince saw in his dream.  The two men then discover that the house has been cordoned off by the police after two bodies were found in the vicinity.  The house's occupier, Mrs Belknap, was run over and killed by a car, and in a closet in the mirrored room was found the body of a young man who was stabbed to death.  It looks as if Vince is indeed a murderer - but what possible motive could he have for killing two strangers...?