Noirsville Gif of the Week

The Killers (1946)

 

Dead Of Night (1945) Anthology Brit Horror Noir

"Another Brit                                      Masterpiece"

I've only caught bit's and pieces of this in the past, while flipping through the channels back in the 1950-60's and it was probably the American release. I never saw it as a whole, and always missed the ending. If I would have seen that I would have dropped it into Noirsville a long time ago.

It seems like the early 1940s to mid 1950s produced a few of these type of Anthology Films either entirely Noir, or with Noir segments, Flesh And Fantasy, The Last Leaf, Souvenirs perdus, Train Of Events, and there's probably a few more out there yet to be discovered in the "Noir Universe."

The film had four directors - Alberto Cavalcanti (I Became a Criminal, For Them That Trespass), Charles Crichton (Train of Events, The Lavender Hill Mob, Hunted, Secret Agent aka Danger Man TV Series, The Avengers TV Series, A fish Called Wanda), Basil Dearden (Train of Events, The Blue Lamp, Pool of London, Sapphire, Victim) and Robert Hamer (It Always Rains on Sunday, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Long Memory, The Detective). 

Written by John Baines and Angus MacPhail, and based on stories by H. G. Wells, John Baines, E. F. Benson, and Angus MacPhail. The framing narrative is a dream. 

The Cinematography was by Douglas Slocombe (It Always Rains on Sunday, The Lavender Hill Mob, Tread Softly Stranger, A High Wind in Jamaica,) and Jack Parker (The Return of Bulldog Drummond). 

Music was by Georges Auric (Wages of Fear, The Innocents). 

The opening credits play over an Edward Gorey-ish drawing (above).

The Farm House Framing Story 

Directed by Dearden - Stars Roland Culver as Eliot Foley, Renée Gadd as Mrs. Craig, Sally Ann Howes as Sally O'Hara the teenager, Mervyn Johns (A Christmas Carol (1951)) as Walter Craig, Anthony Baird, as Hugh Grainger, Judy Kelly as Joyce Grainger, Barbara Leake as Mrs. O'Hara, Mary Merrall as Mrs. Foley, Frederick Valk as Dr. van Straaten, Googie Withers (Night And The City) as Joan Cortland.  

Story

A country road, Turville, maybe? A 1938 Sunbeam-Talbot Ten Drophead Coupé approaches. 

Driving is Walter Craig. The car is coming out of a woodlot section and then driving along the side of a "field. Walter sees a Tudor farmhouse "Pilgrim's Farm" and steps on the brakes.

Mervyn Johns as Walter Craig

It's the place he's been looking for. He drives up to the house and is greeted by Elliot Foley. Crag grabs his bag and follows Foley into the house. Craig is an architect how has been invited by Foley to see about adding two bedrooms to the farmhouse. 

Crag grabs his bag and follows Foley into the house. Craig is an architect how has been invited by Foley to see about adding two bedrooms to the farmhouse.

Roland Culver lt., as Eliot Foley

We start getting clues and music cues to Noirsville right at the get go when Walter, upon entering the farmhouse goes right to a somewhat off to the side foyer. But that's not all.

He already seems to know where to hang his coat and hat, but also tells Foley, after hearing that he's got a room for him in the barn that "its got central heating and every modern convenience." Foley remarks that those were just the words he was going to use.

There's other guests at the farmhouse having tea. As Mrs. Foley introduces to Walter to the tea party guests, Joan Cortland, Dr. van Straaten, Hugh Grainger, and Sally O'Hara. Walter seems dazed, distracted. He neglects to shake van Straaten's or Sally's offered hands, and doesn't acknowledge any of the other guests. 

Lt. and  rt., Googie Withers as Joan Cortland and Mary Merrall as Mrs. Foley

Frederick Valk as Dr. van Straaten rt.

Sally Ann Howes as Sally O'Hara

After the intros, he's offered a chair and plops himself down observing the room, and when Mrs. Foley asks him if he takes milk and sugar he doesn't answer, but deliberately blinks his eyes and says "but it isn't a dream this time your still there."

"but it isn't a dream this time your still there."

Walter then jumps up and shakes Dr. van Straaten's hand saying he's helps him many times in his dreams telling everyone in the room that after greeting Elliot outside, that he's met all six of them before. 

When it's pointed out that there are only five in the room when he came in, Walter tells them that another guest unexpectedly shows up, later, she's a dark haired woman who asks for money.

It's discussed among the guests and Walter, that he's possibly seen them all before, in passing or from newspaper articles, etc., etc. This leads into a discussion of dreams and seeing the future. This segues into Huge Granger relating the first story of the Anthology. 

The Hearse Driver

Directed by Basil Dearden - Stars Anthony Baird as Hugh Grainger, Judy Kelly as Joyce Grainger, Miles Malleson as the hearse, driver/bus conductor, Robert Wyndham as Dr. Albury.

Hugh was a racecar driver. He was in a terrible accident, and awakens in the hospital.  

With good care he recovers, and begins flirting with his nurse. One night after the nurse leaves at 10:00PM. he begins to read a book. 

When he again looks at the clock it's 4:00AM. He is drawn to his curtained window.

Anthony Baird, as Hugh Grainger

When he opens the curtain he is surprised to see a horse drawn hearse in the street below. 

The driver of the hearse tells him that there's room for him indicating the coffin. We cut to the clock and its 5 past 10:00PM.

We see Hugh discussing the dream with his doctor who tells him it's just a psychological reaction to his accident. This reassures Hugh.

When Hugh is discharged from the hospital and out on the street he is just about to load onto a bus when the bus conductor, the very same same man who he saw in his dream as the hearse driver, tells Hugh that there's room for one more. 

Miles Malleson

Of course Hugh is taken aback, does not get on the bus, and right after it pulls away, a lorry pulls into the busses path causing it to break through an embankment wall plunging down to a railway tunnel portal.

Hugh remarks that he probably would have died with the rest of the busses passengers who all perished. 

(This sequence is awfully similar to Twilight Zone's Room 22,  which means that Bennett Cerf the TZ author either was reworking E.F. Benson's 1906 story "The Bus-Conductor" or he saw this film).

At the end of the story Grainger's wife, Joyce the sixth member arrives unexpectedly at the farm house. Joyce Grainger asks her husband to pay the cab driver, Verifying Walter's dream of the "penniless brunette that joins the group," to the skeptical Dr, van Straaten.

Sally  O'Hara then relates the...

The Christmas Party

Directed by Cavalcanti - Stars Michael Allan as Jimmy Watson, Sally Ann Howes as Sally O'Hara, Barbara Leake as Mrs. O'Hara, Uncredited actor as Francis Kent, the ghost,.

At a Christmas party during a game that's a variation of hide and seek, Sally finds a hidden room in the attic. In the room is a small boy who is crying. Sally Comforts him, and puts him to bed. He turns out to be the ghost of a child who was murdered by his sister long ago. (based on a real life murder and a short story based upon it).

He turns out to be the ghost of a child who was murdered by his sister long ago. (based on a real life murder and a short story based upon it).

Joan Cortland is the next guest to relate her strange experience of the birthday gift she purchased for her husband. 

Ralph Michael as Peter Cortland

The Haunted Mirror

Directed by Robert Hamer - Stars, Ralph Michael as Peter Cortland, Esmé Percy as Mr. Rutherford the antiques dealer, Googie Withers as Joan Cortland. 

Peter is very pleased with his birthday present the antique tryptic mirror. He hangs it up in their bedroom. 

All is good until Peter begins to see the reflection of a completely different room behind him whenever he looks in the mirror. 

It's from a different time, lit by candlelight, and heated buy a blazing fire. When he spins around he's back in the original room. Eventually he not only sees the other room but his personality begins to change also. There's a few Twilight Zone episodes featuring reflections in mirrors. 

Elliot Foley next relates his story of the supernatural in.... 

The Golfer's Story

Directed by  Charles Crichton - Stars Peggy Bryan as Mary Lee, Basil Radford as George Parratt, Naunton Wayne as Larry Potter, Peter Jones as Fred the barman (uncredited) this piece serves as comedy relief. 

At Eliot's golf club in Scotland he relates the story of two friends of his who were best of friends until a woman enters their life. 

,

Naunton Wayne as Larry Potter, Peggy Bradford as Mary Lee, and Basil Radford as George Pratt

They make a wager over the woman, the loser takes his life but returns in the form of a ghost to haunt the winner in both his golf game and his romantic life.

This was based on H.G. Wells' tale "The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost" (1902). French Anthology Film Souvenirs perdus also features a comedy relief sequence. It also portends the Ealing Comedies the studio was known for in the 1950s.

The final tale is related by Dr. van Staaten....

The Ventriloquist's Dummy

Directed by Cavalcanti - Allan Jeayes as Maurice Olcott, Magda Kun as Mitzi, Miles Malleson as the jailer, Garry Marsh as Harry Parker, Hartley Power as Sylvester Kee, Michael Redgrave as Maxwell Frere, Frederick Valk as Dr. van Straaten, Elisabeth Welch as Beulah.

Dr. van Staaten was brought in by a defense attorney to a Metropolitan Police Station to evaluate the sanity of a ventriloquist Maxwell Frere who has tried to murder Sylvester Kee a rival.

When van Staaten tries to question Frere he refuses to speak, he tells van Staaten that Hugo is the only one that can help him. Hugo is his dummy. Once Frere is removed from the room and van Staaten reads Kee's statement, we go into a flashback inside a flashback.

Kee met Frere when Frere was performing at the Chez Beulah Nightclub in Paris. It goes Noirsville when Hugo the dummy wants to team up with Sylvester Kee a rival ventriloquist. (Probably inspired by  The Great Gabbo (1929) adapted from short story The Rival Dummy by Ben Hecht (1928) and Gerald Kersh’s 1939 story The Extraordinarily Horrible Dummy). A similar scenario of a rogue dummy is also used again in an episode of The Twilight Zone and of course Magic (1978) also cones to mind, I know there's quite a few others). 

The end of this segment segues back into the original Farmhouse framing story.

Noirsville

Michael Redgrave as Maxwell Frere

Both Dead of Night (1945) and Julian Duvivier's earlier Flesh and Fantasy (1943) were extremely influential Horror Noir films. They spawned a slew of similar film efforts, and also inspired a host of other creative pieces most notably Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. 

In both films you see how much the Visual Noir Style had evolved in the twenty years from nineteen twenty's The Cabinet of Dr, Caligari and those original German Expressionistic roots. 

The three outstanding performances are Michael Redgrave's portrayal of Maxwell, Ralph Michael's as Peter Cortland, and Mervyn Johns as Walter Craig. The rest are all very convincing.

Make sure you watch the original full one hour and forty-three minute UK release version. The U.S. version was shorn of both the Christmas Party and The Golfer's stories, probably to fit on a double bill. This shortened version causes the final Noir expressionistic sequence to make less sense since Walter Craig treks, in person, back through all the same illusionary segments / dreams,  that were related by each of the groups members. With two segments cut out, Walter's passage through them would be rendered unexplainable. It's no wonder it's not remembered here in the states as well. Another 10 /10.

"Dead of Night remains a horror film which casts a long shadow of influence over the genre. Like the greatest films, it is one which can be repeatedly viewed to reveal new layers of insight and experience. It has set a standard which has rarely been equaled."  (Jordan Prejean - Twilight Zone Vortex)