Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

bsmith5552 I just discovered "So Dark the Night" in the recently released "Film Noir Classics 4" set from Turner Classic Movies. Although it is presented as a border line "noir" it is really a complex little murder mystery with a few surprises thrown in. Filmed on a modest budget on studio bound sets in good old Black and White, it runs a scant 71 minutes.Director Joseph H. Lewis has assembled a cast of largely unknown actors which adds to the mystery elements of the film. Steven Geary plays Parisian detective Henri Cassin who is burned out and ordered to take a vacation by his boss Commissioner Grande (Gregory Gaye). Cassin goes to a country inn and there meets the proprietor's young daughter Nannette Michaud (Micheline Chierel)whereupon a May-December romance begins. Nanette hopes to escape her small village to the lights and glamour of Paris.The girl's father Pierre Michaud opposes the relationship because Nanette is already betrothed to local farmer Antoine (Frank Arnold) and he feels that the age difference between Cassin and Nanette is too great. Antoine is also opposed to the union and promises to continue to pursue Nanette even after her planned marriage to the detective. Mama Michaud (Ann Codee) is pushing Nanette into the relationship to help her to a better life.Nanette and her fiancé are found murdered causing Cssin's vacation to be cut short. He soon begins to investigate the murders with surprising results. The suspects include Nanette's parents, a sinister looking widow (Helen Freeman) and a hunchback (Brother Theodore)Cassin's resolution of the murders comes after he gives a description of the murderer from the clues he has gathered to the police artist back in Paris. The murderer then turns out to be................................................................A good movie.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Burnt out famous Paris police inspector Henri Cassin, Steven Geray, decides to take a trip out to the country to chill out and get his head back together. That's after solving a string of unsolvable crimes that almost put him in the hospital suffering from exhaustion.At the small town of Saint Margot Henri stays at the Le Cheval Noir Inn where he plans to catch up with his long needed sleep and spend his free time out fishing at the local river. It's when the inns owner Pierre Michaud's, Edger Borden, daughter Nanette, Micheline Cheirel, laid her eyes on Henri, who's exploits as a crime solver preceded him, she went completely gaga over the meek middle aged police inspector. In fact it was Mama Michaud, Ann Codee, who tried to get Nanette and Henri matched up against the objections of her husband Pierre who thought that he, being some 20 years Nannete's senior, was a bit too old for her.Things got a little sticky when Nanette's boyfriend, who was also engaged to her, Leon Achard, Paul Marion, got wind of her attraction to Henri and didn't like it one damn bit! Not being able to hold back his dislike for Henri Leon felt that Nanette's mother was the cause of her being so involved with Henri. Leon realized that Henri being the big man in crime solving that he is compared to himself a dirt poor farmer was more of a catch, in Mama Michaud opinion, then he was for her daughter Nanette.It's when Leon caught both Henri and Nanette smooching at the riverbank that he completely flipped out. Telling Nanette that he's not going to stand for her to leave him for Henri and that he'll kill her if she did didn't makes thing any better for Henri who was not really that interested, in him being a life long bachelor, in marrying her in the first place. It's later when Nanette was found dead and dumped off a bridge into the river that Leon became the prime suspect in her murder! That's until Leon himself was found murdered like Nanette, strangled to death, outside his farm!***SPOILERS*** With Henri being put on the murder investigation by the local constable he after examining all the evidence comes up with absolutely nothing in who murdered both Leon and Nanette! Becoming obsessed in cracking the murder case Henri slowly, due to the pressure of the job, starts to crack up himself! It's almost by accident that Henri uncovers the person who murdered both Nanette and Leon in a plaster cast he made at one of, Leon's, the murder scenes. But the person that Henri came up with is so unconnected to Leon and Nanette's murder that his boss back at the Paris Police Department thinks that Henri has finally lost it and even goes so far as recommending that he spend some time in a sanitarium for a long needed rest.Little did anyone know at the time that Henri, crazy as he was, was right on target in whom he suspected in Leon and Nanette's murders! With no one believing him Henri on his own went out to prove his murder theories by going back to Saint Margot where the murders were committed! And by him bringing the murderer to justice Henri could finally get the much needed rest that he so badly needed. Even if in the end it ended up killing him!

blanche-2 A French cast is featured in "So Dark the Night," a 1946 B noir directed by Joseph Lewis. Steven Geray is Henri Cassin, a burnt-out detective who goes on holiday. He falls in love with Nanette Michaud (Micheline Cheirel), who kind of plays both ends against the middle. Nanette is already engaged to someone she's known from childhood, and she tells him that she loves him. Meanwhile, she's attracted to the older detective's perceived money and Paris residence. One day, they both end up dead - and there's more tragedy to come.I would have loved to see this plot directed by someone like Hitchcock, who could build the suspense. As it is, it's a good story, but the film is on the lifeless side. Only 29 at the time of filming, Micheline Cheirel comes off as a bit too mature for some reason. Since the movie was low budget, however, there wasn't any attention paid to lighting or soft lenses to give her a more ingénue look. Geray is very good and underplays his role."So Dark the Night" plays about an 1:15 minutes. It's intriguing, but it could have been so much more.

howardeisman Okay, so who dunnit? The answer here is a deus ex machina, a plot device frequently used in Hollywood in the 1940s and still used today. To me, it is a writer's cop-out. I hate it.Otherwise, this is a quick moving film which failed to engage me emotionally or intellectually. Ms. Cheirel looked a bit too old to be playing a naive young woman. This weakened the first part. Scenes seemed to be under-rehearsed. There was no build-up to what should have been a surprising climax, nor was there tension where there should have been tension building up. Performances were uneven.A French shrug of the shoulders on this one.