Clash by Night

Starring:Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe, J. Carrol Naish, Keith Andes, Silvio Minciotti, Tony Martin, Diane Stewart, Irene Crosby, Frank Kreig, Bill Slack, Deborah Stewart, Roy D'Armour, Nancy Duke, Dan Bernaducci, Dick Coe, Julius Tannen, William Bailey, Mario Siletti
Director: Fritz Lang
Studio: Turner Home Ent
Product Type: DVD

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Film noir is such a rich cinematic zone that second-tier specimens compel nearly as much fascination as the classics. At a glance, Volume 2 of Warner Bros.' (ever-expanding, we hope) Film Noir Collection is a distinct step down from Volume 1--inevitable when you've launched your series with five landmark titles, including three outright noir masterpieces (The Asphalt Jungle, Gun Crazy, Out of the Past). But linger beyond that first glance, because the second set is a flavorful mix of sleazoid iconography (two vehicles for B-movie bad boy Lawrence Tierney), an offbeat outing for a major director (Fritz Lang in his Howard Hughes RKO period), Poverty Row production circumstances that encourage aggressively peculiar, verging-on-radical filmmaking (the strange mélange that is Monogram's Dillinger), and two pressure-cooker suspense pictures that are landmark films in their own right (Crossfire and The Narrow Margin).

Jean-Luc Godard dedicated Breathless to Monogram Pictures, and Dillinger (1945) was probably the main reason why. With an Oscar-nominated script credited to Philip Yordan (abetted by his friend William Castle, director of Monogram's excellent When Strangers Marry), Max Nosseck's 60some-minute account of the Depression-era outlaw's brashly improvisatory career is a hypnotic mix of bargain-basement filmmaking (lotsa stock footage and minimalist sets), astute ripoff (the rain-and-gas-bomb robbery sequence from Lang's You Only Live Once), and Brechtian bravura. The major Hollywood studios had taken a vow of chastity when it came to glorifying gangsterism; Monogram ignored the embargo and barreled ahead to unaccustomed popular and critical success. The storyline actually scants the ultraviolence (no Bohemia Lodge shootout) and all-star supporting cast (no Pretty Boy Floyd, no Baby Face Nelson) of Dillinger's real life--likely a matter of cost-cutting rather than abstemiousness. Newcomer Lawrence Tierney nails the guy's coldblooded freakiness and animal magnetism, and the supporting cast includes such éminences noirs as Marc Lawrence, Eduardo Ciannelli, and Elisha Cook Jr. Producers Maurice and Frank King would make Gun Crazy four years later.

Born to Kill (1947) is the second helping of Tierney, playing a psychotic drifter who's irresistible to women ("His eyes run up and down ya like a searchlight!" breathes housemaid Ellen Colby, just about the only female he doesn't bother targeting). A number of people end up dead by his hand, but the kicker is that he crosses paths with a woman--socialite-divorcee Claire Trevor--just as heartless as he, and even more treacherous. The script makes less sense with each passing reel, but there are ripe character turns by Walter Slezak, as a philosophical private eye who operates out of a diner; Elisha Cook Jr., as Tierney's more level-headed partner; and Esther Howard, as a hard-bitten old bat who flirts with Cook in a nightmarish nocturnal wasteland outside San Francisco.

Three Roberts--Young, Mitchum, and Ryan--costar in Crossfire (1947), one of only a handful of noirs to be sanctified with Academy Award nominations: best picture, director Edward Dmytryk, screenwriter John Paxton, and supporting players Ryan and Gloria Grahame. The film unreels during a single sweaty, post-WWII night when one among a squad of GIs on leave in Washington, D.C., murders a nice Jewish man (Sam Levene) because he doesn't like "his kind." The audience knows who's guilty before the cops do, and Ryan's portrayal of the bigot will make the hair on your neck rise. Police detective Robert Young plays with his pipe too much and makes one speech too many, but the atmosphere is memorably taut and surreal.

Robert Ryan may be even scarier in Fritz Lang's Clash by Night (1952), a rare noir without any criminal aspect: all its bitterness and savagery is emotional, psychological, and--preeminently--sexual. Barbara Stanwyck, slightly past her stellar peak but in her prime as an actress, plays a married woman in a New England fishing town who knows what a bad idea it is but falls anyway for a vicious, misogynistic movie projectionist. Sample Clifford Odets dialogue, Stanwyck to Ryan: "What do you want to do to me? Put your teeth in me? Hurt me?" Clinching ensues. (All this and Marilyn Monroe, too.)

We've saved the best for last. Narrow Margin (1952) is the kind of trim, beautifully paced movie people have in mind when asking, "Why don't they make 'em like that anymore?" Two cops have to guard a gangster's widow against assassination as she rides the Golden West Limited sleeper train from Chicago to give evidence in L.A. Soon there's only one cop (gravel-voiced Charles McGraw, usually a villain), and he's finding the sharp-tongued widow (Marie Windsor) as obnoxious as she is endangered. Nothing goes quite as you'd expect in this exemplary train thriller, which rattles and rocks toward its destination without a music track or a wasted moment. --Richard T. Jameson

Description

Hollywood's legendary tough guys and femme fatales collide again in The Film Noir Classic Collection Volume Two. The Collection includes five smoldering classics, all new to DVD and all digitally remastered: Born to Kill, Clash By Night, Crossfire, Dillinger and The Narrow Margin. The movies star film noir icons Robert Mitchum, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor, among others, and feature commentaries from film historians and directors including Robert Wise on Born To Kill Peter Bogdanovich, with archival contributions from Fritz Lang, on Clash By Night; John Milius on Dillinger and William Friedkin and Richard Fleischer on The Narrow Margin.

Customer Reviews:

Not the ultimate but still good.......2006-08-28

Compared to the outstanding Volume 1 in the collection, Volume 2 is not as exciting. However, it's still worth having.

Each movie in this box set has something unusual to contribute, so even though some of the titles aren't textbook noir, they have enough noir elements to give them a toehold on the genre. I hope future volumes (I have #3 already) will include more intriguing titles. My preference would be for Angelface, Desperate, Conflict, Dead Reckoning, and The Big Heat. That said, I don't regret adding Volume 2 to my collection.

Born To Kill has all the classic elements an admirer of the genre craves and more. From the title one thinks the story will chronicle the destruction (and inevitable self-destruction) wrought by Laurence Tierney's one-track, menacing psychopath, and it does. But the original working title, Deadlier Than the Male, reveals the real story: Claire Trevor's composed detachment and icy self-possession as she takes over Tierney and assumes control of their situation. She manipulates people and events as though conducting moves in a game. She is utterly amoral, unlike Tierney's maniac who is organically bad; she has a choice whether to be bad or not, and simply doesn't care. The nice twist here is that in the toughguy chauvinism of noir, the woman proves more cunning and dangerous than any man.

Clash By Night has the telltale moodiness and self-destruction of noir, but without the moral ambiguity and lawless element. There is plenty of violence but not in the physical sense. Here it mainly takes place in the emotional upheaval of the characters, thus setting apart this title in a niche of its own.

Crossfire is an important piece for its groundbreaking treatment of bigotry, specifically anti-Semitism. Released slightly sooner than Gentleman's Agreement, an argument can be made that this movie paved the way for the social commentary that would mark much of postwar cinema.

Dillinger is a great example of how skimpy budgets helped create the look of what would come to be known as film noir. Not a lot of pennies went into this one, but neither was a single penny misspent. Every scene is spare and tight and the entire story moves along with the singlemindedness of a getaway car.

The Narrow Margin is all sharp angles and sharp dialogue, and even has a sharp detective in a tight spot. All in all, a sharp little movie, but what really sets it apart is the complete lack of a music score. The director replaces strings and brass with locomotives to punctuate what might otherwise be a typical suspense-on-a-train yarn. The rushing rhythm of the tracks enhances the rapid pace of the story and unrelenting pursuit of the antagonists, while whistles and screeches mirror the shrill unpleasantness of a reluctant witness escorted by an even more reluctant protector. Claustrophobes beware--the train interiors give this one a real sense of restriction and entrapment.

There are not a lot of extra features in this set but each title does include a commentary track. I especially liked the ones on Born To Kill and Crossfire.

Disappointing follow up to vol. 1.......2006-06-30

I had high hopes for this set after being quite impressed with vol. 1. All the movies were top notch & they all looked excellent (probably restored). Then came the Gangsters box set, which, while not all 5 star movies, made up for that fact by also including introductory news reels, cartoons & featurettes for each film. After watching all of these films, I must say it seems like WB has rushed this one onto the market. No extras like the Gangsters box set and the prints used for this set weren't restored. "Crossfire" in particular looks really bad, with all kinds of spots & cuts. The movies were also a mixed bag. Despite its title, "Dillinger" was particularly dull, a rather formulaic bank robbery movie. "Crossfire" had potential, but it's social commentary becomes a little preachy in the end, though it may be of interest to film historians. "Clash By night" was the biggest surprise in its dark view of married life. Hopefully WB will put at least a little bit more effort into vol. 3.

An Interesting Mix.......2006-03-31

This set illustrates the diversity of Noir films. Crossfire and Narrow Margin develop plot complexities handled in very dynamic ways that propel the film. Born To Kill, Dillinger, and Clash center on strong but flawed personalities and the viewer watches them self destruct over the course of the film. The filming of Clash strongly suggests the stage play from which it came. Individual performances are fascinating. Barbara Stanwyck in Clash is delightfully hard edged and cynical. Marie Windsor in Margin is gorgeous and a very good actress. Robert Young in Crossfire is unexpectedly forceful. Robert Ryan is always threatening and relentless. Robert Mitchum plays the somewhat weary, seen it all before character of many of his early films. Lawrence Tierney is perhaps the stiffist actor to ever be filemd. Two of his films is one too many.

A Worthy Sequel..........2005-11-05

Beautiful, just beautiful! I was floored by WB's 1st "classic noir" boxed set, and this one is just as good.
The films are not as well known, and may not be in the same tier as the ones in the first set (how can you top "Out of the Past"?.. okay, you CAN'T), but they are all truly great noir flicks, with absolutely stellar digital transfer. The commentary is also just so cool on these films. Did you like the 1st set? Do you like noir? Do you simply like a great, entertaining movie? If the answer is 'yes' to any of these questions, then by all means buy this (priced right) set immediately, and buy the "Volume 1 set". Watch and enjoy, and wait, with baited breath, for when WB releases the next volume of this series. Incredible set, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Almost as good as Volume 1.......2005-09-21

The first set of the Film Noir Classic Collection was chock full of great movies, so I was naturally looking forward to the second set. Volume 2, happily, is also a good collection, not quite at the par of the first set but still with five decent-to-great movies. And if they play a little faster and looser with the definition of film noir in this set, that doesn't deprive the collection of its value.

First viewed (I tried watching them in chronological order) is Dillinger, a fictional biography of the real-life criminal John Dillinger. This movie stars Lawrence Tierney as the title character, a generally cold-hearted killer who is a cunning bank robber. For those most familiar with Tierney from his role as a crime boss in Reservoir Dogs, this is a showcase for the actor in his prime. The movie itself is more of an old-fashioned gangster movie (similar to the ones in the Warner Gangster Collection) than a true noir movie, but it is nonetheless good, though too much the B movie to be great.

Second is Crossfire, a more true noir film dealing with anti-Semitism. Starring three Roberts - Ryan, Young and Mitchum - it gets somewhat preachy towards the end which makes it merely good instead of great. Although the focus of the story shifts from character to character, the true star is Ryan as a hateful psychopath. Mitchum is good but underutilized and Young is competent but relatively boring.

The gem of the collection is Born to Kill, with Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor in a tale of classic film noir complete with femme fatales, murder and plenty of shady characters. Tierney plays a man on the lam after killing his girlfriend and her date (an ill-conceived attempt to get Tierney jealous). Soon he meets Trevor, but finding her engaged, woos and marries her wealthy step-sister. That doesn't stop Trevor and Tierney from their own star-crossed romance and soon enough there is more death. Directed by Robert Wise (also responsible for The Set-Up, and in other genres, The Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story and Sound of Music), this is one of the classics of the noir genre.

Almost as good is Narrow Margin, the one movie with lesser stars such as Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor. The story is about a cop escorting a reluctant witness on a train ride from Chicago to Los Angeles; also aboard the train are killers who don't know what the witness looks like, but are certain that McGraw is protecting her. This leads to mix-ups and plot twists that are ironic but rarely comic. This is one of the great "train thrillers," a neat sub-genre that includes such classics as The Lady Vanishes and North by Northwest.

Finally, there is Clash by Night. Although the use of lighting and dialogue is noirish, this movie is not film noir but rather a soap opera with a romantic triangle of Barbara Stanwyck as the woman with the past, Paul Douglas as her benevolent but rather simple husband and Robert Ryan as the callous friend who insinuates himself into her life. Marilyn Monroe has a small role but as always, steals her scenes. Playing her boyfriend is Keith Andes, a guy who was supposed to be the next big thing but never made it.

All the discs come with commentaries that are often illuminating. Born to Kill and Narrow Margin are five-star flicks; the others are four stars. That averages to 4.4, but I will round up because of the extras. Even if these are not all truly film noir, this is a great collection and well-worth the viewing if you enjoy classic movies.

Average customer rating:

No glamour here for Marilyn. Barbara Stanwyck is
SMOLDERING MELODRAMA. RYAN AND STANWYCK EXQUISITE!!!!!!!
Expected More
A tense gritty melodrama
At long last available to the public

Clash by Night
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck , Paul Douglas , Robert Ryan , Marilyn Monroe , and J. Carrol Naish
Director: Fritz Lang
Manufacturer: Turner Home Ent
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Film Noir | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Musicals & Performing Arts | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Foreign & International | Stores | DVD | Video

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B00097DY02
Release Date: 2005-07-05

Amazon.com essential video

Barbara Stanwyck plays a hardened woman returning from big-city life to her northern fishing village in this 1952 film noir. After deciding to settle down, she marries a simple man (Paul Douglas) but is wooed by another (Robert Ryan), a circumstance that turns what had been her choice into her trap. Director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M, The Big Heat), working from a Clifford Odets story, teases out his pet themes about human beings ensnared in fate by their own impulses and in search of redemption. This is not one of Lang's masterpieces, but it is very good in an Anna Christie way. Stanwyck and Ryan, two indispensable figures in the noir genre, are tough as nails. --Tom Keogh

Description

Mae Doyle is a good-time girl, but now times are bad. Weary of too much booze and too many men, she returns to her girlhood home, the fishing village of Monterey, California. There she finds security as the wife of a devoted and dull fisherman?and passion in the arms of his provocative best friend. Film noir master Fritz Lang (The Big Heat, Ministry of Fear) directs four towering talents - Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan and rising star Marilyn Monroe - in a stark tale of lives burnished by human emotion and shattered by human failings. Intense and powerfully realistic, Clash by Night (from a Clifford Odets play) is about many towns, many families. Serene on the surface. Roiling with desperation underneath.

Customer Reviews:

No glamour here for Marilyn. Barbara Stanwyck is.......2007-05-03

is maturing beautifully. She plays Mae & has returned home to her brother, Joe after 10 years. She's become a hard & bitter woman. She is a failure & has returned to the safety and tranquility of this California fishing village. Her past seems shady at best. Paul Douglas plays Jerry, a sucessful fisherman & he doesn't care. He is Joe's boss & falls hopelessly in love with Mae. Jerry is very solid, prosperous, simple & boring. Mae knows what kind of woman she is & doesn't want to hurt the big lug. Eventually, he wears her down. She doesn't love him but has no prospects & marries him. Sniffing around in the background is Earl (Robert Ryan) a divorced lowlife with the hots for Mae. Earl is also Jerry's best friend. Flash forward a year. Mae & Jerry are married & have a baby. She is bored out of her mind & getting an itch. Earl, of course is still around ready to scratch it. They commence to seeking around. Jerry is out to sea literally & figuratively. Mae & Earl make plans to run away. Where? Who knows. What about the baby? Earl's not good father material. It's not a very good plan. Jerry finally gets wind of it all & goes ballistic. He tosses Mae out, steals the baby & retreats to his boat. Earl, the rat-bastard that he is, bails. That leaves Mae begging for Jerry's forgiveness. Stanwyck & Ryan are noir vets but this is not exactly noir. It's mellowdrama, a soap opera if you will. Stanwyck upholds her superior standards & Ryan & Douglas are also pretty good. Marilyn has a limited role as Peggy, Joe's girl & Mae's best friend.. Seeng her as a young, tomboy is quite interesting to say the least.

SMOLDERING MELODRAMA. RYAN AND STANWYCK EXQUISITE!!!!!!!.......2006-11-25

Most reviewers of this film seem to have 'gotten it' with respect to the film's undeniable stance in both Robert Ryan and Fritz Lang's careers. Both celebrities enjoy considerable cult status, and they united for the film, which, along with Barbara Stanwyck's jaded portrait of a fallen woman, achieved a cinema realism that was rare in those days. The film was another example of RKO's attempts to bring outstanding films to the screen. One would be hard pressed to find another studio that so consistently sought artistic merit, dissimilar from studios like Warner Brothers, which catered more to mass interest.

The love triangle involving Ryan, Stanwyck and Paul Douglas, seems entirely plausible then and now. It is amazing to see that the sexual attraction between Ryan and Stanwyck was conveyed without the de rigueur explicit romp in the hay that predominates any film made in the last thirty years. If the viewer wants to see some real sexual tension without the overtness viewers are subjected to these days to get them to watch what's out there, simply watch the scene in which Ryan and Stanwyck engage in a short but heated embrace. One doesn't need to see anything more than Stanwyck's hand clutching Ryan's bare back underneath his T-shirt to envision what happens next.

The addition of secondary players, Marilyn Monroe and Keith Andes, likewise didn't need to achieve its sexual effect in the blatant manner employed in films these days. J. Carrol Naish's devilish Uncle Vince was also a tour de force for this wonderful character actor, and Silvio Minciotti effectively portrayed Paul Douglas's lonely widowed father.

Add to these dynamics a wonderful screenplay, sharply written and without a maudlin word to it. Lang's direction is, without question, faultless, and I can't think of a false move anywhere in the film. Paul Douglas ably portrays the thankless role of the cuckolded husband, and he engenders sympathy for his trusting nature.

However, above all, this is an example of another RKO film in which Robert Ryan's presence elevates the proceedings from a B grade to an A+ grade. The scene in which he is seen at his most intensely lonely moment needs to be seen to be appreciated, when his character, the lonely Earl Pfeiffer, is scorned by Stanwyck's Mae Doyle at her wedding. His descent downstairs at the wedding reception is a classic 'Ryan' vignette of him enacting the quintessential 'film noir' spirit of desperate loneliness, a scene that sticks in one's mind far into the future after the movie is over. In fact, every scene involving Ryan is amazing, and it doesn't seem possible that anyone could find fault with his performance, unless their judgment is seriously lacking.

Expected More.......2006-09-30

I must say that the movie I enjoyed the movie, but expected more to the story than the dark soap opera effect. While watching the early scenes I thought the Stanwyck character had a deep secret that would come out later. When the uncle and dad were talking in one scene they were discussing the discovery of an abandoned baby. I thought this baby would later turn out to be Ms. Stanwycks which she had left for dead after her previous affair with the married man. The ending was also a disappointment. Some scenes were completely bizarre to me and had nothing to do with the story like the Chinese impersonation bit. What was that all about?

A tense gritty melodrama.......2006-09-02

"Clash By Night" is a movie from the "film noir" genre that appears to have been written for Barbara Stanwyck to play the lead. We're lucky that the studio system of the 50's didn't have the same standards as today - casting actresses aside as "too old" as soon as they appear old enough to legally drink. Such a standard would have deprived us of some of the finest performances of Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, and of course, Barbara Stanwyck, this being one of her finest but less known performances. For that matter, the casting of the entire picture is just perfect.

Ms. Stanwyck plays Mae, a woman who left her home town of Monterrey ten years earlier in search of love and adventure, fell in love with a married man who died on her, and was cast aside by the man's legitimate family and friends. Thus she returns home hardened and cynical, with a less than warm welcome from her long lost brother, Joe. Jerry, played by Paul Douglas, is a fisherman, large both in body and in heart, who falls in love with Mae, but seems somewhat emotionally needy. Mae reluctantly decides to marry him because she is seeking stability. After a year or so of marriage and the birth of a daughter, Mae realizes she feels trapped in her dull routine of a marriage. The love that gives the daily routine of life meaning to most people is just not there for her, although Jerry adores her. Earl, played by Robert Ryan, is Jerry's "friend" and is also a kindred spirit of Mae's. He, too, has been kicked around in life and has developed a hard and cynical outlook. He has everything that Jerry lacks, but seems to lack everything that Jerry has, starting with decency and a strong work ethic. Mae realizes that Earl is bad for her, but ultimately loses her fight in being attracted to him. The fact that Mae is his best friend's wife doesn't stop Earl from seducing Mae in Jerry's own home, and then carrying on a clandestine affair with Mae for months, until clueless Jerry is alerted to the situation by his nimrod uncle.

Confronted by her husband, Mae must choose between the two men, and probably most definitely would have chosen Earl over Jerry if it had not been for her daughter. This is the most forced part of the plot development. We don't just see Mae deciding to stay with Jerry because of her daughter. Instead, she seems to have a complete about face in attitude that comes out of nowhere. The film would have us believe that the change came from hearing her own callous attitudes coming from the lips of her lover, but then she's probably been hearing these kinds of words from him for the last several months that they have been carrying on their affair, so this epiphany does not make a lot of sense.

Some parts of this movie are timeless - love and security versus passion and danger, dealing with the consequences of one's actions, and how life's inevitable disappointments make some people hard and cynical. However, some are dated - the most prominent example being Mae's brother Joe and his relationship with his fiancee, Peggy, played by a young Marilyn Monroe. Joe might have appeared as a man who was taking charge of his situation in his rough treatment of Peggy in 1952, but over 50 years later he comes across as a wife batterer in the making.

This movie is probably best classified as a film noir epic, although that term usually refers to crime dramas that set their protagonists in a world perceived as inherently corrupt and unsympathetic. Although that definitey fits the view of the world offered here, this is a psychological melodrama rather than a crime drama. However, the movie does have the low-key black-and-white visual style that is typical of the film noir genre. I recommend the movie, but as another reviewer already remarked, you might get a better total value buying one of the boxed sets that includes this film.

At long last available to the public.......2006-08-14

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, as I never seen it before. Marilyn stars as a factory worker in a fishing village. Her appearance is really sparkling and definitely holds up next to her later work. The story line leaves enough room for all of the actors to stand out. The quality of the material is unexpected fine. As I live in Europe, I regret there are only subtitles in English, French and Spanish, but that didn't keep me from enjoying this movie (and surely won't keep me from seeing it again, and again...).

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