"Excellent Engrossing Rural Crime Thriller"
Director Joseph H Lewis' second film for Columbia (made after 1945's MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS) gets a Blu-ray release from Arrow and if anything it's even better than Lewis' stylish debut at that studio.
Renowned Parisian detective Inspector Henri Cassin (Steven Geray), exhausted by city police work, decides to take a holiday in the country. He ends up in a small village, where he and the local innkeeper's daughter, Nanette (Micheline Cheiral) fall in love. Unfortunately Nanette has been betrothed to local farmer Leon (Paul Marion) from an early age, and Leon doesn't take the news of their engagement well.
Nanette runs after Leon to console him and the next day she can't be found. Until, that is, her body washes up on the bank of the nearby river. Inspector Cassin promises to solve the case himself but it proves trickier than he thinks as bodies start to pile up for seemingly no reason.
SO DARK THE NIGHT starts off so deceptively nice that you think you're going to watch a straightforward, and possibly a little bit insipid, thriller of the period, but once the film gets underway it couldn't be any more different. Definitely a forerunner of the twist-filled gialli of the 1970s, the film also has those movies' dime-store psychology as an explanation for what has been going on, so be prepared to forgive the movie that.
Otherwise SO DARK THE NIGHT is a leap in quality from Lewis' already accomplished MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS, and by the end I was keen to watch it through again now that I knew what was going on.
Arrow's print looks very fine indeed, and is accompanied by a commentary track from NYT reviewer Glenn Kenny and blogger Farran Smith Nehme. There's a also a decent twenty minute analysis of the movie from Imogen Sara Smith, and I certainly agree with her that SO DARK IS THE NIGHT is an undiscovered gem. If you get the first pressing you'll also get a booklet featuring new writing on the film from David Cairns. Definitely worth picking up.
Joseph H Lewis' SO DARK THE NIGHT is released on Blu-ray by Arrow Academy on Monday 18th February 2019
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