writers_reign Let's begin by getting the few squawks out of the way; for no discernible reason the story is set in New Orleans yet not one single person in the cast employs a Southern accent or indeed anything other than an Eastern accent of the kind we'd expect to find in Manhattan. New Orleans of course is celebrated as the cradle of jazz and protagonist Kevin McCarthy is indeed a muso BUT he plays clarinet in a large SWING orchestra - led, in fact, by the great Billy May who also has a speaking role and plays trumpet, as he did in real life. Nothing wrong with that, in fact in my case it's a bonus EXCEPT New Orleans is synonymous with Dixieland and a Swing outfit on Bourbon Street would be like Turnip Greens at the Four Seasons. Those cavils to one side we're left with a taut, nourish entry which holds the attention all the way.

XhcnoirX Kevin McCarthy has a terrible nightmare one night, in which he finds himself inside a room with walls and doors covered in mirrors. He sees what looks like a burglary and tries to prevent it, but in the process kills the burglar. Panicking, he hides the body in one of the mirrored closets, before waking up in a cold sweat. When McCarthy finds a button and a key from his nightmare in his pocket the next day, he fears it might've been than a bad dream. Soon after, on a picnic with his girl Connie Russell, his sister Virginia Christine and brother-in-law Edward G. Robinson, they come across an abandoned house. In the house they find the mirrored room from McCarthy's dream, including a burned safe. And when they find out there's been a murder committed, the nightmare has truly come to life... Robinson, a homicide detective, is convinced McCarthy is guilty but after a failed suicide attempt by McCarthy and a crucial piece of information that he remembers, Robinson decides to look deeper into the matter.This is the 2nd film noir based on the Cornell Woolrich story 'And So To Death'. The first one, 'Fear In The Night', was made in 1947 and was directed by Maxwell Shane. And lo and behold, so is this one! Both movies are very alike and both are well worth watching. This one's set in New Orleans, and has the appropriate 50s jazzy soundtrack. McCarthy ('Invasion Of The Body Snatchers') gives a good if not great performance as a man who's possibly guilty of murder while Robinson ('Double Indemnity') almost phones it in here, which still means he's better than anybody else in the movie, hah... Russell and Christine have very little to do besides being 'the women', neither portray particularly strong women, altho Russell does some nice singing in this movie (if that's her real voice, I have no idea).Aside from fairly minor differences, the main ones being a difference in location and the climax in this one involves a lake and not a car chase, the movies are too alike really. I am not sure what Shane's idea was with this version, the original is a good noir as-is, and so is this one, but it doesn't improve or add anything really. He still does a decent job tho, but with the main story intact, it feels too much like a rehash. DoP Joseph Biroc ('Cry Danger', 'The Garment Jungle') does a good job, not just with the dream sequence but overall the movie is nicely shot. Unfortunately, and also like 'Fear...', this movie seems to be in public domain hell, the copy I saw is in better shape than the version I saw of 'Fear...' (which was really bad) but still washed out. I would love to see cleaned up copies of both, maybe on a 'double feature' DVD? Just don't watch them back-to-back. 7/10

Robert J. Maxwell It begins with Kevin McCarthy's nightmare. He murders a man with the help of a terrified woman, in a room full of mirrors, and then falls into a black hole before waking up in a sweat. It really doesn't look too promising. The print on YouTube is flat with high-key lighting, like "I Love Lucy." But at least McCarthy doesn't wake from his nightmare by shoving his face into the camera lens.Dreams are hard to describe in print and even on film because a fictional narrative has to impose some sort of logic on them. Here, McCarthy must step into a hole in order to fall into it. In real dreams, you just fall. There is no hole and no logic. Falling is statistically frequent in dreams. So are flying and being naked in public, but the most common dream is of being pursued. I'm especially fond of the ones where I'm being chased by some unseen ogre and find myself running in slow motion, as through a swamp of molasses. I speak to you as your psychologist. That will be ten cents.The literalness doesn't stop with the nightmare. McCarthy gets out of bed to find that he has bruises and blood from his dream fight. "All of a sudden the room started spinning" -- and the room spins and spins and resolves into the bell of a trumpet.McCarthy's semi hard-boiled narration carries us through an explanation of how he actually came to kill a stranger, which he did. There are a lot of interludes with Billy May and his band. McCarthy is his arranger and clarinetist. May was kept pretty busy on tours and in television during the big band era, in which he was associated with names like Les Brown and Ray Noble. Meade "Lux" Lewis shows up for a cameo, a pianist who more or less began boogie woogie. You can hear him on YouTube.I've seen the earlier version and wasn't especially impressed by it. I thought it might make a good Alfred Hitchcock hour. Except for its location shooting in New Orleans, this later version doesn't represent a vast improvement. It's not one of Kevin McCarthy's best performances. He's a weakling and a nervous wreck from beginning to end. I suppose, though, that he's as handsome as his sister was talented and sensual, the writer Mary McCarthy ("The Group", etc.). Mary had a way with words. Of Lillian Hellman, she noted that "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'."

dougdoepke If you can get past the improbable key to the mystery, the rest of the movie has some good, strong points. The first twenty minutes plunge us into McCarthy's nightmarish events that may or may not have actually happened. We don't know for sure and neither does he, but there are the scratches on his arm. Did he kill those people or not. The surreal effects are impressively done.McCarthy delivers a gripping performance, as good as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (also 1956), and much better than expected for a B-movie. In short, he makes us believe that his dilemma, however improbable, is real and not just a story construct. Without that intensity drawing us in, the movie would, I think, amount to little more than a mildly interesting walk-through. The New Orleans locations provide a clever anchor to the real world, and a good setting for the colorful jazz scenes. However, a 63-year old Robinson is at least 10 years too old for the brother-in-law part even though he manages the cop role well. And can we really believe the chance occurrence onto the scene-of-the-crime mansion in all that unfamiliar backcountry. Unfortunately, the script requires more than just an ordinary suspension of disbelief. Too bad the script couldn't work in more bayou scenes. Those coming at the end are really creepy and nightmarish in their own right. Too bad also that the excellent McCarthy made so few films, preferring, I gather, stage productions instead. All in all, an interesting if regrettably flawed little movie.