| So Dark the Night | |
| Director: | Joseph H. Lewis |
| Producer: | Ted Richmond |
| Screenplay: | Dwight V. Babcock Martin Berkeley |
| Story: | Aubrey Wisberg |
| Starring: | Steven Geray Micheline Cheirel Eugene Borden |
| Music: | Hugo Friedhofer |
| Cinematography: | Burnett Guffey |
| Editing: | Jerome Thoms |
| Studio: | Columbia Pictures |
| Distributor: | Columbia Pictures |
| Runtime: | 70 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
So Dark the Night is a 1946 American crime film with film noir influences featuring Steven Geray, Micheline Cheirel and Eugene Borden.[1] Based on a story written by Aubrey Wisberg, the screenplay was written by Dwight V. Babcock and Martin Berkeley, and directed by Joseph H. Lewis.
A Parisian detective, Henri Cassin (Steven Geray), falls in love with country innkeeper Pierre Michaud's daughter Nanette (Micheline Cheirel) while on a long overdue vacation. She is a simple girl with a jealous boyfriend, Leon (Paul Marion). Nonetheless, the detective becomes engaged to her. On the night of their engagement party, the girl vanishes and later turns up dead. Cassin believes that the obvious suspect is Leon, but soon he is also found killed. Soon after Nanette's mother (Ann Codee) receives a warning that she will be the next to die, then is found strangled.
Pierre, fearing for his safety, decides to sell the inn. Henri returns to Paris, and using his investigative skill produces a rendering of the killer.
To Henri's astonishment, the sketch is of himself. When he fits his shoe into the footprint, he realizes he is the murderer. After making a full confession to the police commissioner, Henri is evaluated by a psychiatrist, who determines that he has schizophrenia. Though placed under watch of a guard, Henri escapes back to St. Margot, where he tries to strangle Pierre. The police commissioner, who has followed the detective to the village, catches him in the act and shoots him dead.[2]
At the time of its release the staff at Variety magazine gave the film a positive review, writing, "Around the frail structure of a story [by Aubrey Wisberg] about a schizophrenic Paris police inspector who becomes an insane killer at night, a tight combination of direction, camerawork and musical scoring produce a series of isolated visual effects that are subtle and moving to an unusual degree."[3]
In 2003 the critic Dennis Schwartz lauded the film, writing:
The modern critic Karl Williams called the film, "[A] well-plotted and executed film noir [which] suffered from its lack of star power, but has become something of a cult classic."[4]
The film was released on Blu-ray in 2019 by Arrow Films in the UK and Eire.