Sadly Over-hyped

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

If you've seen the remake of this film under its original story title Nightmare than you pretty well know what this story is. In fact the only difference I could tell is that in Fear In The Night protagonist DeForest Kelley is a bank teller whereas Kevin McCarthy in the remake is a jazz musician. The remake was shot in New Orleans while this one has the old standby Los Angeles as the scene of activity.In any event DeForest Kelley is bothered by a persistent and nagging nightmare that he killed somebody. Only no murders have been reported in the metropolitan area. But on a Sunday drive with his brother-in-law Paul Kelly and sister Ann Doran, Kelley leads them to a house and shows enough to his brother-in-law to know that something happened. You see Paul Kelly is a homicide detective.At some point and I can't lest I spoil one of the best scenes of the film Paul Kelly starts believing his brother-in-law. The man responsible is Robert Emmett Keane though how he is responsible I can't say again lest I give the whole film away. It was quite an interesting scheme Keane had to rope an innocent in to do his dirty work.My criticism of Fear In The Night is the same I had of Nightmare. Some good performances and a nice suspenseful story. But it was also done on the cheap even for a noir film.Fans of the noir genre will love it though.

I know nothing about this film except my own opinion of it since I watched it by random and still have not read so much as a word about it anywhere – not even the TV guide! I saw it was a thriller noir and that was enough and very quickly the film gets into the genre device of the frenzied dream state with a calm narration by the person suffering it; it will be a device familiar to fans of the genre and it is one that the film embraces stylistically in order to open the film. The plot is that a normal guy who works in a bank has this dream where he murders a man in a small mirrored room while a woman looks on. He wakes the next day with some cuts and bruises and is unsure if it was real or not.The mystery goes from there but the film weakens itself from the very start and only hurts itself more from then on. By opening immediately in this way the film seeks to grab the attention but we have no context, no reason to care, no questions about what we see, all because we have no idea who anyone is or what they do. Once we get through this scene there is a little bit of background but mostly we stay in the feverish panic stage as Vince "remembers" stuff he can't possibly know, thus making the whole film essentially one of build as he realizes that, somehow, he really was where his dream had him. Problem is that, without context, this is something we know from the very start, because this device is so common and, if it isn't real then there really is no point to the whole film – so the reveals don't add clarity or drama, they simple continue to reinforce what we already know. Eventually we start to make progress but we do this off characters that are introduced as those involved so in terms of drama it is really very much a case of "here's Jim – he did it. Huh? Who's Jim – never worry about that, you got your solution".It isn't quite this bad but it is pretty close and at the end of the film I realized that I had never cared for or known any of the characters and thus it was only the device that made me curious about the outcome. There is at least one nice touch in the conclusion but that is all and otherwise it feels like a really hollow film where the original idea was the starting point but the structure and delivery never really got sorted out. The cast don't help this feeling – in particular DeForest Kelley can only mug melodramatically from the very start – which means this is the only character we know. The supporting cast are stiff but yet do the job I suppose – few of them have much to work with. The direction etc is by the numbers and feels like a lift from other, better films.Overall this is no more than a so-so film that uses a device that other films have used to better effect. The structure and delivery of this device is way off and left me really having no reason to care either for the characters or for the solution too much. Nothing really clever or of note here, just a by-the-numbers affair that doesn't have much of its own to do.

"City Across the River" writer & director Maxwell Shane has crafted a hypnotic little film noir crime thriller based on a story by celebrated "Rear Window" author Cornell Woolrich. "Fear in the Night" unravels about 50 minutes into its 72 minute running time, but most mysteries have to give up the ghost late in the game. Incidentally, "Fear in the Night" never wears out its welcome. Meantime, this clever but contrived melodrama boasts first-rate performances by Paul Kelly, Ann Doran, Kay Scott, and Deforest Kelly in his cinematic debut as a killer on the loose. The last ten minutes are pretty good as we learn how the murder was committed and yet another murder is attempted. Although this film was produced in 1947, Shane has fashioned a modest but engrossing whodunit with "G.I. Jane" lenser Jack Greenhalgh's interesting visuals, particularly a dreamy opening scene in an octagonal room with mirrors on all the doors. This scene with its lap dissolves and narration seems rather sophisticated for its day. Our sympathetic protagonist, Vince Grayson (Deforest Kelly of "The Law and Jake Wade"), dreams he is in an octagonal room paneled with eight mirrors. He watches as a blonde woman and a man crack open a safe concealed behind one of the doors. Suddenly, Vince engages in close-quarters combat with the safe-cracker, and his opponent sinks his hands into Vince's neck. The blonde slips Vince an awl, and he plunges it into the safe-cracker's heart! The woman scrambles out of the room in terror while our hero hides the corpse of his adversary behind one of the doors. Vince locks this door and pockets the key. He awakens from this eerie nightmare at 8:43 AM in his downtown Los Angeles hotel room. Initially, he believes it was only a bad dream until he peers into the mirror and discovers thumb marks on his neck. Moreover, he not only finds dried blood on his wrist, but also removes a key and button in his pocket. Ominously enough, he remembers grasping these things during his dreamy struggle with the guy that he stabbed to death. Disconcerted, Vince calls in sick at the bank where he works as a teller. Vince's boss Clyde Bilyou (John Harmon of "Hitch Hike to Hell")suspects that Vince may have embezzled money, but his fears prove groundless. Naturally, since his girlfriend, Betty Winters (Kay Scott of "The People Against O'Hara"), works as a cashier at the same bank, she grows concerned about Vince's welfare. Meantime, poor Vince remembers the distinctive mirrored room and a struggle that ended in the death of another man. Stricken with a guilty conscience, Vince visits his brother-in-law, Los Angeles Police Detective Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly of "Springfield Rifle"), who is sanding a miniature version of Martha Washington's bed. This minute detail contributes to Cliff's penchant for details that late helps him clear his brother-in-law. What is doubly cool is that you find yourself suspecting Kelly since he could play a villain as well as a hero. Vince confides in Cliff about the crime, but his brother-in-law insists that Vince is suffering from stress related to his work. Vince takes out an advertisement in the newspaper for a house with an octagonal mirrored room, but this leads him nowhere. Later, Cliff takes his wife Lil (Ann Doran of "The Gumball Rally"), Vince, and Betty for a picnic in his new, second-hand sedan to Solanor. They cruise out into the country with Vince and Betty occupying the back seat. Cliff has Lil feeding him marshmallows while he lies sprawled on his back, but Lil gets scared when she hears thunder. Cliff is genuinely considerate toward his wife because she is pregnant. Everybody piles into his car and Cliff drives away as it begins to rain. Cliff's windshield wipers malfunction, and they look for someplace to hole up until the rain slackens. Vince directs them to a house. Since Vince doesn't drive, Cliff grows suspicious about his knowledge of the area. They pull up to a big house and Vince knows where the key to the front door is. Our heroes enter the uninhabited house. Cliff turns on the gas fireplace and brews tea while Vince wanders off to satisfy his curiosity. Not surprisingly, Vince finds the mirrored room. Later, downstairs in the kitchen, Cliff and Vince are surprised when Sheriff's Deputy Torrence (Jeff York of "Old Yeller") catches them in the house. Torrence tells them about a murder that occurred in the house while the man of the house, Lewis Belknap (Robert Emmett Keane of "Gossip") was away on business in Mexico. Torrence explains that a man was killed and Belknap's wife was run down and killed by somebody in a car. Vince is relieved because he cannot drive, but later he faints when he sees photographs of the dead woman.The last twenty minutes pile on some incredible revelations, including the fact that Vince did kill the man in the house. Deforest Kelly is well cast as the innocent victim who is not as innocent as he believes. Shane does a masterful job of stringing up along with the ending that is unusual.

OK, this is a little film noir from 1947. You can stream this one for free on Netflix or for free at Archive.org. Fear in the Night is about a man (Vince) who has a terrible nightmare in which, he kills a man in a strange mirrored room.When he wakes up he discovers that he has blood on his wrist on bruises on his neck just like in his dream. Slowly Vince begins to realize that he may have actually committed the murder that he dreamed about. In a panic Vince enlists the aid of his brother in law Cliff and the two of them try to figure out what happened before Vince is arrested for murder.You can tell right away that this was made on a modest budget and some of the acting is pretty atrocious but, it's an interesting crime drama and was an enjoyable watch.This movie was re-made with the same director in 1956 with Edward G. Robinson. This time it was called Nightmare.This is the feature film debut of DeForest Kelley who later went on to play "Bones" on Star Trek.