Highly Overrated But Still Good

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Copyright 6 August 1947 by Select Productions, Inc. Released through RKO Radio Pictures. New York opening at the RKO Palace: 16 September 1947. U.S. release: 6 August 1947. Australian release: 26 February 1948. 8,902 feet. 99 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Joe Adams (Fonda) is a soldier just returned from wartime service, who returns to his small Pennsylvania town and has trouble adjusting to dull civilian life. He takes a job as a sandblaster and meets a pretty girl, Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes) and soon falls in love with her. Both are orphans and sympathetic to each other's background. Complications arise when he learns that she had been seeing a suave magician, Maximilian (Vincent Price). Joe seeks out the magician's assistant, Charlene (Ann Dvorak), who warns him that Maximilian is a charming seducer. Maximilian visits Joe and claims to be Jo Ann's father and that he wishes Joe to stay away from her.NOTES: A re-make of the 1939 French film "Le Jour Se Leve" directed by Marcel Carné, with Jean Gabin, Jules Berry, Jacqueline Laurent and Arletty in the roles now played by Fonda, Price, Bel Geddes and Dvorak respectively. This marks the film debut of Miss Bel Geddes, daughter of famed stage designer/producer Norman Bel Geddes ("Dead End"), and star of numerous Broadway productions including Elia Kazan's enormously successful 1945 "Deep Are the Roots".Negative cost: around $2 million, all of which was lost when the film failed at the box-office.COMMENT: The public hated this movie. The critics likewise, all of us (including me) comparing it unfavorably to Le Jour Se Leve. A recent re-examination of this film shows that we were all more than a little hasty in dismissing it so glibly. In fact there's much to admire from Litvak's superb control of the teeming crowds of onlookers to Barbara Bel Geddes' luminous portrait of the too- romantic Jo Ann and Ann Dvorak's suitably cynical study of the disillusioned Charlene. Fonda is perhaps too up-market an actor to play a mill-worker adequately. Certainly he's too well-spoken and has far too sophisticated a presence for the rather naive hero of this story. You never get the feeling he is a real Joe, but just an actor, struggling to play the part. The same criticism can be applied to Vincent Price. A difficult role it's true, but his interpretation is just too mannered, too contrived, too artificial. Aside from these two key performances, however, everyone else is fine.Litvak, his photographer and set designer have really let themselves go with the Hakim Brothers' money. As a mood piece, "The Long Night" would be hard to equal. One major change that I like is Litvak's use of aggressive police and a huge chorus of onlookers who shout the hero their support. I also thought the heroine's struggle and eventual meeting was suspensefully and realistically constructed, leading to a satisfying, upbeat conclusion.OTHER VIEWS: "The night is long that never finds the day." This opening quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth failed to impress contemporary critics who likened this version most unfavorably to the original. Certainly Jules Berry's performance would be difficult to equal. Perhaps wisely, Vincent Price doesn't even try, acting on a superficial one-note throughout, but this does make it hard to accept the film as a whole, despite the radiant presence of Barbara Bel Geddes as the heroine, and Ann Dvorak giving one of her most impressive performances ever as the cynical Charlene. Henry Fonda is badly miscast. The role really called for a Gary Cooper or a James Stewart, someone who could portray the intensity of a simple common man with naive ideals. Fonda could do this later in his career, but here he is too mannered and artificial to be convincing. The director has more success in marshaling his vast crowds, using his famous signature crane shots to great effect. - JHR writing as George Addison.AVAILABLE on DVD through Kino. Quality rating: Ten out of ten.

I was not familiar with this film when it turned up on TCM, but I'm glad I didn't skip over it. It's a darned good "sort of" film noir, which for the most part seems rather realistic.Henry Fonda is excellent here as a WWII vet for whom things quickly go down hill, despite being well-liked by virtually everyone. And that's why his performance is so good -- he plays a wide variety of emotions here -- joy, love, despair, anger -- each done effectively.Barbara Bel Geddes made her film debut here, having come from Broadway. She was always a very different actress, as you see here, but quite effective. Ann Dvorak has an odd role here as a sort of "the other woman", and former state assistant to a magician. She is quite effective, as well. I'm not sure what to make of Vincent Price here. As the magician, and a liar, he is quite creepy, but I can't quite decide on the quality of his performance. One problem is that his makeup is quite distracting, and I think poorly done. So while he is supposed to be older and more mature, his skin looks very young while his hair is gray.One of the things that was done very effectively here was the telling of the story through flashbacks, including at one point a double-flashback! That technique is, in my view, often overdone. But here it is the perfect way to tell the whole story. Bravo to the screenwriters and the director! The score for this film is supposed to be notable...by Dimitri Tiompkin. Well, I don't see it as being notable...just overly loud and oppressive. And, that's odd. A film score is meant to compliment a film, not overpower it. And, I generally like Dimitri Tiompkin.Although the ending is not quite satisfying, this is a very good film that will keep you watching! Recommended.

Americanized version of "Le Jour se Leve" from 1939 has Henry Fonda cast as a straight-laced boarding-house resident who is taunted and prodded by the decadent magician who has eyes for his well-scrubbed girlfriend, resulting in violence. Peculiar melodrama (with noir-ish overtures) has flashes of grit and atmosphere to spare, but a plot rife with flashbacks (one of which overlaps into another). Some amazing moments, but it feels watered-down, blunted. The emotional state of the street crowd outside Fonda's window isn't used to point up the central action--they seem to gather only to hear Henry make a corny, impassioned speech. Nevertheless, Fonda does well with an atypical character, though Vincent Price's shady showman and Barbara Bel Geddes' love-interest are left deprived by the weak writing. It certainly looks good, and the finale doesn't tidy things up too much. ** from ****

It's too bad THE LONG NIGHT couldn't have been a short one.This is a disastrously dull movie with HENRY FONDA and BARBARA BEL GEDDES both playing implausibly motivated people who fall in love at first sight. Fonda plays another one of his "everyman" roles but is more of a lost puppy than usual in this depressingly dark noir directed without his usual style by Anatole Litvak.The first twenty-five minutes had me wanting to switch the movie off, it was so poorly constructed. I found it impossible to watch the whole thing.If any kind of film noir is your thing, you may stick around to see the whole movie. I found it a frustrating waste of time and certainly not a film that Fonda or Bel Geddes should be proud to have on their resume.