Well-Acted, Eventful, and Suspenseful

The 1947 American film noir crime-drama The Long Night starts with Joe Adams, a young man well-known and liked in his working class neighborhood, fatally shooting an older man who tumbles down two flights of stairs. He then shoots at police officers who attempt to question him. The rest of the film shifts between flashbacks leading up to his reasons for shooting the man, and Joe’s current state holed up in his room as the police try increasingly drastic measures to flush him out.

Henry Fonda’s portrayal of Joe Adams is more than usually likable and relatable. He wins the audience over to the side of this orphan raised in an institution who never had a family, is a war veteran and blue collar worker. He meets Jo Ann, played by Barbara Bel Geddes, when she becomes lost making a flower delivery and he gives her directions. It turns out they lived in the same orphanage at different times.

After less than a month of seeing each other, Joe wants to marry Jo Ann and becomes somewhat possessive of her to the extent of following her one night to what she terms an appointment. They end up at a nightclub where Maximilian the Great, played by Vincent Price, performs a magic act. Eventually Joe gets Jo Ann to tell him about Maximilian and she describes meeting him and attending concerts and the like. Jo Ann relates that she never consented to any physical intimacy with Maximilian, even objecting violently to a good night kiss. Much of the theme of the movie regards lying and to what extent it goes. Maximilian also lies outrageously to Joe, claiming to be Jo Ann’s father and then taking it back, and Jo Ann denies it, to the point where Joe doesn’t know what or who to believe, and lets his imagination run wild. Joe also befriends Charlene, played by Ann Dvorak, Maximilian’s former assistant. By all appearances Joe is in love with Jo Ann and just friends with Charlene, but they talk a lot and she makes many unpleasant revelations about Maximilian, who comes across as a compulsive seducer of women who probably keeps a score card. Jo Ann is attached to Joe, and though not until later to the point of proclaiming she loves him, asks him to stop seeing Charlene.

Vincent Price was 36 years old when this film came out but playing a character possibly ten years older. His hair is whitened at the sides in a way which doesn’t look entirely natural. Otherwise everything about his performance is fantastic. He presents the magic tricks with great flair. Some of this involves a very cute dog act but even the dogs don’t entirely steal the scene from him. He is wonderful as this charming, scheming, slimy, lying, rat of a sociopath with a mesmerizing voice. Henry Fonda is hot in this but Vincent Price manages to be even hotter. Other actors might have played this role but no one could play it like Vincent Price.

I must also put in a word for Barbara Bel Geddes, who plays Jo Ann as a young woman so refined as to be uptight but ultimately capable of very passionate emotion.

I rarely mention music but it must be said here that Dimitri Tiomkin is credited with the music. He might have written the beginning and end music but can’t have written much else as the movie music consists primarily of the famous Allegretto second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Beethoven is not credited, which sometimes happens with classical music in movies but not always.

As for objectionable content, this is rated 16+ on Amazon Prime for violence, smoking, alcohol use, and foul language. Yes on the first three but I didn’t hear any foul language. There is a physical altercation and a fatal shooting. A forced kiss followed by a very real slap (his face actually moves when struck) also appears. Regarding smoking, I may have seen more in some film but that was when several characters smoked at once. I have never seen so much smoking by one character in any film. A couple of viewers actually counted and came up with that not only are there three pipe smokers and one cigar smoker in the first 12 minutes, but that Henry Fonda consumed a total of 13 cigarettes in the course of the film. I haven’t counted how many John Wayne smoked in The Quiet Man but this has to have him beat. Animal cruelty is not shown but Charlene describes a very cruel training method that Maximilian uses on his dogs.

The Long Night is a very suspenseful movie leading up to its dramatic conclusion. The 16+ rating is justified.