Alex da Silva This story starts like an episode of Dr Who with kaleidoscope images just like in the beginning credits. It's a blatant copy. The director was obviously a fan. It's a dream sequence from which Deforest Kelley (Vince) then wakes from and has to work out what the hell has just happened. He's dreamt that he killed someone and things pretty much point to the fact that he actually has gone ahead and killed someone as per dream. Paul Kelly (Cliff) is there to help him work things out.Deforest Kelley is Dr Leonard McCoy aka Bones from Star Trek. He looks young in this but he's recognisable. Hey Bones, what's going on in your head? There is one scene where Paul Kelly threatens to punch out Bones and you see that he has done this thing before. Actually, he has – he was sent to prison in real life for punching someone to death and got 10 years for manslaughter. This film is made after his release and so nobody really wants to mess with him.The film zips along and tells the straight narrative without any complications. It's not believable at all but go with it for some hypnotic enjoyment.

Enrique Sanchez Today I watched DEFORREST KELLEY's movie debut. Not because of Star Trek, but because of the title of the movie. When I found out it was Kelley, my interest grew.The movie starts out eerily but not unlike a million other noirs. The mood, the music, the main character's narration. The object of the movie unfolds quickly. At first, you think the acting is prosaic. But as it unfolds, the rhythm of the story grabs you.One of the most inconsequential things also made it realistic for me. It was ANN DORAN. Her presence acts as a beautiful balance. She always portrayed a common-sense woman and somehow this made the noirish mood natural. So many times, the noir mood pervades an entire movie to point of suffocation and sometimes makes a noir maudlin. It seems that the writer and director Maxwell Shayne or maybe Cornell Woolrich's great sense of storytelling that made the mood evenly wrought."Fear In the Night" is a fine, interesting, suspenseful movie that I recommend not as a masterpiece but as a very fine example of a good idea very well made. Some would say as a great Saturday afternoon movie... which would be a slight misappreciation of this excellent noir!

zardoz-13 "City Across the River" writer & director Maxwell Shane has crafted a hypnotic little film noir crime thriller based on a story by celebrated "Rear Window" author Cornell Woolrich. "Fear in the Night" unravels about 50 minutes into its 72 minute running time, but most mysteries have to give up the ghost late in the game. Incidentally, "Fear in the Night" never wears out its welcome. Meantime, this clever but contrived melodrama boasts first-rate performances by Paul Kelly, Ann Doran, Kay Scott, and Deforest Kelly in his cinematic debut as a killer on the loose. The last ten minutes are pretty good as we learn how the murder was committed and yet another murder is attempted. Although this film was produced in 1947, Shane has fashioned a modest but engrossing whodunit with "G.I. Jane" lenser Jack Greenhalgh's interesting visuals, particularly a dreamy opening scene in an octagonal room with mirrors on all the doors. This scene with its lap dissolves and narration seems rather sophisticated for its day. Our sympathetic protagonist, Vince Grayson (Deforest Kelly of "The Law and Jake Wade"), dreams he is in an octagonal room paneled with eight mirrors. He watches as a blonde woman and a man crack open a safe concealed behind one of the doors. Suddenly, Vince engages in close-quarters combat with the safe-cracker, and his opponent sinks his hands into Vince's neck. The blonde slips Vince an awl, and he plunges it into the safe-cracker's heart! The woman scrambles out of the room in terror while our hero hides the corpse of his adversary behind one of the doors. Vince locks this door and pockets the key. He awakens from this eerie nightmare at 8:43 AM in his downtown Los Angeles hotel room. Initially, he believes it was only a bad dream until he peers into the mirror and discovers thumb marks on his neck. Moreover, he not only finds dried blood on his wrist, but also removes a key and button in his pocket. Ominously enough, he remembers grasping these things during his dreamy struggle with the guy that he stabbed to death. Disconcerted, Vince calls in sick at the bank where he works as a teller. Vince's boss Clyde Bilyou (John Harmon of "Hitch Hike to Hell")suspects that Vince may have embezzled money, but his fears prove groundless. Naturally, since his girlfriend, Betty Winters (Kay Scott of "The People Against O'Hara"), works as a cashier at the same bank, she grows concerned about Vince's welfare. Meantime, poor Vince remembers the distinctive mirrored room and a struggle that ended in the death of another man. Stricken with a guilty conscience, Vince visits his brother-in-law, Los Angeles Police Detective Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly of "Springfield Rifle"), who is sanding a miniature version of Martha Washington's bed. This minute detail contributes to Cliff's penchant for details that late helps him clear his brother-in-law. What is doubly cool is that you find yourself suspecting Kelly since he could play a villain as well as a hero. Vince confides in Cliff about the crime, but his brother-in-law insists that Vince is suffering from stress related to his work. Vince takes out an advertisement in the newspaper for a house with an octagonal mirrored room, but this leads him nowhere. Later, Cliff takes his wife Lil (Ann Doran of "The Gumball Rally"), Vince, and Betty for a picnic in his new, second-hand sedan to Solanor. They cruise out into the country with Vince and Betty occupying the back seat. Cliff has Lil feeding him marshmallows while he lies sprawled on his back, but Lil gets scared when she hears thunder. Cliff is genuinely considerate toward his wife because she is pregnant. Everybody piles into his car and Cliff drives away as it begins to rain. Cliff's windshield wipers malfunction, and they look for someplace to hole up until the rain slackens. Vince directs them to a house. Since Vince doesn't drive, Cliff grows suspicious about his knowledge of the area. They pull up to a big house and Vince knows where the key to the front door is. Our heroes enter the uninhabited house. Cliff turns on the gas fireplace and brews tea while Vince wanders off to satisfy his curiosity. Not surprisingly, Vince finds the mirrored room. Later, downstairs in the kitchen, Cliff and Vince are surprised when Sheriff's Deputy Torrence (Jeff York of "Old Yeller") catches them in the house. Torrence tells them about a murder that occurred in the house while the man of the house, Lewis Belknap (Robert Emmett Keane of "Gossip") was away on business in Mexico. Torrence explains that a man was killed and Belknap's wife was run down and killed by somebody in a car. Vince is relieved because he cannot drive, but later he faints when he sees photographs of the dead woman.The last twenty minutes pile on some incredible revelations, including the fact that Vince did kill the man in the house. Deforest Kelly is well cast as the innocent victim who is not as innocent as he believes. Shane does a masterful job of stringing up along with the ending that is unusual.

Spikeopath Fear in the Night is directed by Maxwell Shane who also adapts from Cornell Woolrich's (AKA: William Irish) story titled Nightmare. It stars Paul Kelly, DeForest Kelley, Ann Doran, Kay Scott & Robert Emmett Keane. Music is by Rudy Schrager and photography Jack Greenhalgh. Plot finds bank teller Vince Grayson (Kelley) awoken from a nightmare where he kills a man in a mirrored room. Disorientated and sweaty, Grayson is further startled to find bruises on his neck and items about him that suggest that his nightmare was real. After confiding about the events to his brother-in-law, detective Cliff Herlihy (Kelly), it's presumed he's under stress and a good day out with the girls will do him wonders. But once the picnic with the girls is interrupted by a storm, Grayson finds himself leading the group to a house in the country. A house he doesn't know and a house he's sure he's never been to, but upon the discovery of a mirrored room it becomes evident that something very strange is going on….Low budget across the board but not suffering too much for it. A cracking little film noir mystery neatly condensed into 72 minutes. Maxwell Shane's film is dealing in dreams and a protagonist caught in a circumstance, without understanding, that's out of his control. Tormented not only by the events of what appears to be in his "dream", but also by the heavy cloud of befuddlement that follows him during daylight hours. He himself ponders if he is going insane? It's a good question, and one which Shane and Woolrich do well to not answer for the first half of the film as the atmosphere stays hazy. The tone of the narrative is aided considerably by Greenhalgh's photography, Schrager's music and Shane's box of cheap, but hugely effective, tricks.Much of the film relies on visuals to make its points, even as we get a cool pulpy voice over from Grayson, the blurry shifting images say much more. So too does the use of mirrors, very Hitchcockian: with the actual mirrored room at the core of the story very disambiguation like. There are shadows involved for practically every interior shot and even for much of the outdoor sequences too. While the music comes from the realm of the haunted house. The cast give variable performances, but there's nothing to hurt such a short movie. Lets just say that Kelley (in his first main role) fits the dazed requisite well and it's no bad thing that Doran & Scott don't get a lot of screen time. Kelly (Crossfire) is good value, making a believable copper, while Keane is wonderfully sedate and creepy (check out the candle sequence).True enough there's problems that stop it being a B noir classic, such as the back screen shots and the afore mentioned less than stellar acting. Whilst the film would have benefited more by having a Gothic designed house as opposed to the white picket fence type that is used. But considering the budget and time of its making, it's an admirable film that's easily recommended to noir and murder mystery fans. Shane liked the story enough to remake it as Nightmare in 1956 with Edward G. Robinson & Kevin McCarthy as cop and protagonist respectively. A bigger budget and name actors it has, but the jury is still out on its worth. I'm happy with this version, thanks, even if the DVD print is old and scratchy. 7.5/10