Nice effects though.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This One has an Interesting Pedigree. It is a Remake of a Film-Noir, Fear in the Night (1946) from the same Director, the Prolific (mostly screenplays) Maxwell Shane. Everybody Endlessly compares the two Movies, OK We get it.This is a Distinctive Noir, at the End of the Cycle and it is Remarkable because it includes almost every Film-Noir Trope starting with the Title. Obsessive Fans of the Genre could make a List.The least Impressive thing about "Nightmare" is the Print. TCM, a stickler for finding the Best Available, showed a very Unimpressive Version that was Weak all around. The Contrast is "Greyish" and the Look is very Flat. That Visual Disappointment Aside, the Film reminds of the Great Style that was all but Forgotten by 1956.Seemingly Filmed on a Very Low Budget, it still manages to Conjure Up the Atmosphere of True Film-Noir. The On-Location Footage on the Streets and Bayou are "Nightmarish". The Film feels Odd and Off-Beat adding to the Enjoyment. The Cast lead by Edward G. Robinson and Kevin Mccarthy give the Movie Gravitas and the Story, by Cornell Woolrich, is Rich with Mysterious Happenings and Dreamlike Displays. If every Reviewer on Earth hasn't Spoiled the Ending You will No Doubtedly have a Fun Time with this Mystery Movie. Highly Recommended for Low-Budget Entertainment. This 1956 Film-Noir shows just what Staying Power the Genre could Generate. The Conservative Fifties, with Very Few Exceptions, had Hollywood Capitulating to Government Gawking and Back-Room Intimidations and the Cynical and Edgy Film-Noir Genre was Relegated to Cheap Second Features and within a Year or two was Abandoned Altogether.Making a Comeback about a Decade Later, as Neo-Noir, the Movies Started Experimenting with a Renewed Energy as things were Opening Up Culturally and the Art Form found that the Freedom to Express was again winning the Public's Imagination and Imagination is obviously one of the Ingredients in the Creative Process.

In the role right before he made a comeback of sorts in The Ten Commandments, Edward G. Robinson stars in Nightmare where he solves both a crime and a particular nightmare that Kevin McCarthy is going through. You see McCarthy thinks he killed and Robinson is a New Orleans homicide detective.Kevin plays a mean jazz clarinet in Billy May's Orchestra where girlfriend Connie Russell sings. McCarthy who scored with the same kind of role in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers thinks he's killed someone in an old mansion in a room with a lot of mirrors. There's a man and a woman in the same recurring dream.Like his Body Snatchers part, McCarthy is trapped in a Nightmare and by circumstances he can't control. Of course the very cynical homicide detective Robinson doesn't really believe him, but he's going along for the sake of Virginia Christine, Robinson's wife and McCarthy's sister.In the end it becomes clear enough though the manipulator of the events is a character introduced after Robinson really begins an investigation. Nightmare is a decent enough noir thriller, but it really does look shot on the cheap with real New Orleans and country Louisiana locations. Not on the to 10 list of any of the principals.

Pine-Thomas (the 2 Dollar Bills) certainly got their money's worth out of the William Irish (Cornell Woolrich) story "Nightmare". Back in 1947 they made it as "Fear in the Night" with a young Deforest Kelly ("Bones" from the original "Star Trek" series) making an impressive debut and veteran Paul Kelly as his brother in law. It was a case of really there is nothing to separate these two fine films (unusually Maxwell Shane wrote and directed both films) with "Nightmare" being equally impressive and having the edge in production values and being set in an interesting jazz environment "way down yonder in New Orleans". In the earlier film Kelly was his usual edgy, angsty self while Robinson rounded out his characterization by being a very motivated cop (shades of "Double Indemnity").Kevin McCarthy is just fantastic and I couldn't agree less with the reviewer that feels he just walked through his part. He is Stan Grayson, a jazz musician, who awakes from a ghastly nightmare which took place in a room full of mirrors, convinced he has killed a man. Being stressed with work and having, that same day, some of his arrangements rejected for being too "out there" is enough to have him doubting his own mind. He goes straight to his sister (Virginia Christine), and his brother in law, Rene (Robinson) a cynical cop tells Stan his mind is suffering from overwork - even when Stan produces a key and a button that he doesn't know how he got!!!Of course things start to fall into place when, taking shelter from a fierce thunderstorm which wrecks their picnic, Stan somehow directs them to an unoccupied house in the middle of nowhere!! "I've been here before"!!! He knows where the spare key is and then shows Rene the "room of mirrors" at the top of the house. Rene then believes Stan is a cold blooded murderer who has deliberately involved his family only for sympathy but in the usual Robinson way he systematically sets about solving the case and leading to an ingenious conclusion involving Stan's meek and mild neighbour.This movie was made when Robinson's career was at it's lowest ebb, he had had a run in with the H.U.A.A.C and felt after that a lot of the work he was given was mediocre. Viewing the movies now, a lot of them were better than the As (Cecil B. DeMille etc) of the time and Robinson's performances are among his best. Marian Carr who played the blonde vamp Stan encounters when he is trying to retrace his steps had a pretty uneventful career, considering the promise and the big things that were expected from her when she first went to Hollywood. She was voted "Miss Insomnia" as the starlet voted most likely to keep men from their sleep!!! but after "Nightmare" her career was over!!

I saw this movie several years ago, and it scared me plenty. It used to run a lot on late night tv, but I haven't seen it in years. I'm surprised AMC doesn't pick it up with its' film noir series.