Strangers in the Night Blu-ray Review
Catfish, circa 1944.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 2, 2013
Catfish is one of those rare movies
whose
title has managed to enter the public lexicon and serve as shorthand for a concept or situation. For those of you who
aren't totally current with the cultural
zeitgeist, or who at least have not seen the film,
Catfish is a
documentary (though some insist it was staged) dealing with an artist who becomes enamored with a girl who initially
reaches him via snail mail. The two soon start communicating by phone and ultimately make that ultimate of modern
commitments, "friending" each other on Facebook. Only—well, those of you who are
sports fans who have followed the Manti Te'o fiasco might be able to guess the denouement. Let's just say that the
artist
was, to borrow a running gag from Jon Stewart on
The Daily Show, "Tuiasosopo'd". (And if you're so far out of
the
pop culture loop as to not have the slightest idea what
that means, I refer you to Google and/or your nightly
"infotainment" broadcast). There's been a lot of chatter, some since
Catfish, but manifestly more since the Te'o
incident, about the perceived ridiculousness of "fake" online relationships and how stupid people must be to believe in
them. What may strike some people as absolutely incredible about
Strangers in the Night, a little remembered
1944
B-picture that has whatever cachet it's managed to achieve due to it having been directed by Anthony Mann, is that it
traffics in much the same idea. Yes, the technology is different—pen pals rather than Facebook friends—but the basic
concept is devastatingly similar. Only in Mann's formulation, it's not a mere prank but something decidedly more
sinister.
We're a much more cynical people generally than we were in 1944, and so it's easy to come to
Strangers in the
Night "knowing" the twist, at least more or less, and wondering when the people
in the film will finally figure
out what's going on. But there are two arguments against having too sanguine a reaction to this admittedly slight
entry
from the forties. First of all, even audiences in the forties may well have sensed that
something wasn't quite
right
with Hilda (Helene Thimig), the elderly woman who is ostensibly the mother of a young woman who has been writing a
serviceman named Johnny (William Terry). But more importantly, knowing the twist of the film really doesn't deprive it of
its kind of creepy atmosphere. This isn't exactly
noir in the classic sense of the term, but Mann and his
cinematographer Reggie Lanning do great things with light and shadow in the best
noir tradition, and Mann
crafts
a rather moody ambience that serves the film very well.
Johnny is wounded in action one of the first scenes of the film, and doesn't seem to have much to live for. But it's soon
revealed he's been exchanging letters with a girl named Rosemary whose name and address he found in a book that
had been sent overseas to help provide a little piece of home for some unknown soldier. In the meantime, we're also
introduced to Hilda and her quivering companion Ivy (Edith Barrett), who live in an impossibly gargantuan house
perched on the side of a cliff above the Pacific Ocean. Hilda's formal parlor is focused on a humongous oil painting of
her daughter Rosemary, and both Hilda and Ivy help celebrate the unseen Rosemary's birthday by speaking to the
painting and raising a glass in Rosemary's honor. Feeling a little creeped out yet?
There's a new doctor in town who is making the rounds and comes to meet Hilda and Ivy. Hilda is shocked to discover
the new doctor is a
woman and is more than a little rude to her. The doctor, Leslie (Virginia Grey), handles the
rudeness with grace and excuses herself with the convenient reason that she has to take a train to San Francisco. A
few days later Leslie and Johnny "meet cute" on the train back to the little California town where Hilda lives, when
Leslie arrives at Johnny's diner car table and plops a copy of the very same book down in front of him that he had
received previously from Rosemary. The two are just striking up an acquaintance when a rather unexpected accident
occurs.
This being a B-movie clocking in at well under an hour, the accident does little in the way of plot development, other
than to show Leslie is indeed a competent doctor, and to get Leslie and Johnny alone afterward in a hotel. Johnny, not
having met Rosemary yet, is beginning to have second thoughts anyway, since Leslie is such a find herself. However,
he spills the beans to Leslie, who agrees he needs to at least go thank Rosemary for having provided him a lifeline of
sorts when he was overseas. Leslie is somewhat shocked to discover the "Rosemary connection", having already met
Hilda and seen the gigantic portrait which looms over Hilda's living room.
There aren't really any major surprises in the second act of
Strangers in the Night. Johnny goes to the house
and meets Hilda, who assures Johnny that Rosemary will be back soon. A number of intervening plot developments
keep Johnny at the house, while Ivy becomes more and more nervous, obviously only too aware that a fraud is being
perpetrated. Leslie's suspicions are also raised, but the real problem is that Johnny seems to recognize the style of the
painting of Rosemary and thinks he knows who the artist might have been.
That doesn't sit well with Hilda at
all.
Within the confines and context of a fairly predictable B-movie, there's a lot to like about
Strangers in the Night.
There
are several unexpected developments along the way, some of them silly (like the aforementioned
accident) but some quite a bit more chilling (a late showdown between Hilda and Ivy is very well done). The film is
highlighted by a fantastically disturbing performance by Thimig as Hilda. Terry, Grey and Barrett are also excellent and
contribute to a brisk, compelling entertainment. Like many B-movies,
Strangers in the Night is a little too short
and underdeveloped for its own good, and it frankly lapses into sheer lunacy in its closing moments (including a laugh
out loud comeuppance for Hilda). But the film shows Mann to be a master even at this early stage of his career in
creating and sustaining a very suspenseful, eerie mood, one that's perhaps unexpectedly powerful for a film of this
limited running time and overall ambition.
Strangers in the Night Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
This would seem to be a world way from Anthony Mann's huge epics like
El Cid and
The Fall of the Roman
Empire, or his many iconic westerns, including several with James Stewart. But there's still fine attention to craft here,
and
Strangers in the Night is often unexpectedly effective, even if wiser viewers are going to guess the "surprise"
from the very first moments of the film. Mann elicits uniformly fine performances, especially from an absolutely haunting
Helene Thimig, The film is too short for its own good, kind of rushing along without fully developing some of its plot points
(there are a couple moments of glaring illogic), and there's no denying that the finale gets to be almost intentionally silly.
But even with its flaws,
Strangers in the Night is a wonderfully moody experience and should easily appeal to lovers
of psychological thrillers. This Blu-ray offers great video and nice audio, and even without any supplements, comes
Recommended.
