SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT (Twentieth-Century Fox, 1946)

D: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. P: Anderson Lawler (Twentieth-Century Fox). W: Howard Dimsdale, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Ph: Norbert Brodine. M: David Buttolph. St: John Hodiak (George Taylor), Nancy Guild (Christy Smith), Lloyd Nolan (Lt Kendall), Richard Conte (Mel Phillips), Josephine Hutchinson (Elizabeth Conroy) 


“Do you know what it’s like to be alone in the world? A billion people, every one of them a stranger” 

One of the earliest employments in film noir of amnesia as a metaphor, Mankiewicz’s second feature centres on a veteran reconstructing his life after the trauma of war. George Taylor – if indeed he is George Taylor – lost his memory in a grenade blast. The only clues to his identity are a poisonous letter from an anonymous old flame and a three-year-old note from a friend, one Larry Cravat, promising him $5,000. His search for Cravat takes in classic noir habitats – basement bars, seedy apartments, clammy docks – and turns up a murder rap and a fortune in Nazi loot. 
 
 
“The themes surrounding the shell-shocked GI… can be read as a comprehensive critique of urban society both before and after the war,” writes Nicholas Christopher in his book named after this film.[1] That may be overstating it as far as Somewhere in the Night is concerned, but it captures splendidly what Christopher calls the veteran’s “sense of displacement, rejection, and cynicism as he tries to re-enter American society”. Taylor is pushed to the brink of madness as he attempts to piece his life together. Nobody recollects – or will admit to – meeting him before the war, except for one desperately lonely woman (a poignant cameo by Josephine Hutchinson), who then admits she was lying; his paranoia about every passing stranger becomes almost pathological – then again, this is the kind of noir in which passing strangers do indeed have sinister purposes; and the elusive Cravat becomes a kind of Harry Lime figure, wanted by both the police and sundry underworld schemers, his reputation darkening as ugly truths emerge.  
 
 
Hodiak is a rather dour actor, but he injects Taylor with just the right dose of nervous tension, of increasing pertubation. (The character’s past life as a private detective makes him even more archetypal for noir.) Nancy Guild is adequate as the torch singer who aids him in his quest, but struggles to give substance to an admittedly underwritten role. Thankfully, the script is flush with vivid supporting roles, from Fritz Kortner’s sham spiritualist and Richard Conte’s smooth-yet-shady bar owner, to Lloyd Nolan’s good-humoured policeman, who resents the stereotypes perpetuated by “movie cops”, particularly when it comes to the wearing of hats. Some of the dialogue is diamond sharp. 
 
 
While the combination of subjective camera and blurred images in the opening sequence achieves the required disorienting effect, Mankiewicz’s direction in general errs on the cautious side. (Norbert Brodine’s excellent lighting takes the lead in setting the atmosphere, on a mixture of studio sets and real locations.) If the film is not as exciting visually as others of its ilk, it measures up in thematic terms. Taylor’s pursuit of answers, in course of which he effectively chases his own shadow, entails the same physical and psychological pain – the equivalent rite of passage – endured by all noir protagonists compelled to blow the dust off the past.
Kevin Grant


[1] Somewhere in the Night (Simon & Schuster, 2010)
 

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