Anatole Litvak’s THE LONG NIGHT was released in 1947 by RKO pictures. This gritty slice of Film Noir is a remake of Marcel Carne’s 1939 masterpiece of poetic realism, LE JOUR SE LEVE (DAYBREAK). THE LONG NIGHT features Henry Fonda in his prime, and a great over-the-top performance by Vincent Price. Kino Video managed to secure a print of this film, which has never been seen on home video, and probably hasn’t been on Cable or TV syndication in many years (if ever). Kino is one of those independent companies like Roan, All Day, and Image who really know how to restore classic films and present them properly on DVD. It’s not an easy task as it sounds; just check out some of those classic Universal DVDs, and you can see that even companies with deep pockets can’t make an old film look like new.

Peter Fonda stars as Joe Adams, a grizzled ex-G.I. who has a hard time adapting to society after the war. Barbara (VERTIGO) Bel Geddes makes her motion picture debut as teenage orphan Jo Ann, who is Joe’s girlfriend. Vincent (HOUSE OF WAX) Price is the conniving lounge magician Maximilian, who makes life difficult for Joe and his girlfriend. Ann (ESCAPE FROM DANGER) Dvorak plays Maximilian’s assistant, Charlene. Elisha (HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) Cook Jr. plays Joe’s blind neighbor. Moroni (COBRA WOMAN) Olsen plays the city’s Chief of Police. Russian director Anatole Litvak has a proven track record with films like CONFESSION OF A NAZI SPY, SNAKE PIT, and NIGHT OF THE GENERALS.

It all started when Joe was working at his factory job. It was there he met Jo Ann, who was delivering flowers to someone in the building. Joe started talking to her, only to find out that they both have much in common. They are both orphans who grew up in the same orphanage, unbeknownst to one another. In a matter of weeks, their romance turns to love, with Joe already talking about marriage. One day Joe follows his girlfriend into a crowded lounge and finds her talking to Maximilian (Vincent Price), a performer who works in the lounge. As Joe keeps a sharp eye on them, Maximilian’s hardened assistant, Charlene, who has just angrily resigned from serving with the magician, and joins Joe for a drink at the bar. Maximilian approaches her, and roughly tells her to reconsider her decision. Joe speaks up for her and tells Maximilian to get lost. Later, Maximilian approaches Joe, and informs him of his interest in Jo-Ann. He confesses to be Jo-Ann’s father, though she doesn’t know it. Joe is blown away by this confession.

He notices that Maximilian has been spending a lot of time with Jo-Ann, which drives a wedge between their relationship, and Joe ends up spending time with Charlene. When he tells Charlene about Maximilian’s confession, she laughs and tells him that Maximilian is a con artist. Naturally Joe is enraged and confronts Jo-Ann about the matter. She recalls how Maximilian courted her long before she met Joe, and how he is still trying to seduce her. Joe is aware that his nemesis is a liar and a con artist, and the Magician continues to try and see Jo-Ann while taunting Joe the whole time. Then one evening, Maximilian makes the mistake of going up to Joe’s apartment to taunt him some more. He bought a gun in case in case Joe gets violent. The confrontation turned sour quickly, and the ex-G.I. disarmed his visitor and shot him with his own gun.

Which brings us to the present. The police chief has assembled a small army to deal with Joe. Jo-Ann fights through the large crowd that has gathered below Joe’s apartment, and begs the police chief to spare him. Sadly, he refuses and orders his men to bring up the tear gas. Jo-Ann is hysterical now, and begins screaming up at Joe’s apartment about their love. The city residents all know Joe, and they are on his side. They join Jo-Ann in her chants to spare Joe, but the police are dead set against resolving the standoff any way they can. Because of the police’s attitude and the people’s desire to spare their well-liked neighbor, a riot breaks out. Seeing all the mayhem his actions have caused, Joe reveals himself to the crowd and vents his spleen. Then the police shoot tear gas into his open window, and Joe is shaken up. In all the excitement, Jo-Ann slips by the police blockade and makes her way up to Joe’s apartment. She pounds on his front door, and yells at him to open it. But the tear gas has done a job on Joe, and he is in a trigger-happy frenzy—he thinks the police are banging on his door. Jo-Ann tries to force open the door, while her frazzled boyfriend starts to shoot through the door! Is this a doomed romance?

Anatole Litvak gets his cast to deliver stellar performances. And his crew capture the drama and suspense with rich, dynamic visuals. The characters are well-developed, and not your usual cliched Hollywood stereotypes. What hurts this film is that it is told through an intricate web of flashbacks. THE LONG NIGHT begins with Joe Adams holed up in his apartment by the police. Then Litvak reconstructs the turn of events that led to this desperate act. The story then shifts to flashbacks of how he and Jo-Ann met and fell in love, Jo-Ann’s former relationship with Maximilian, and Joe and Maximilian’s fateful confrontation. During the flashback scenes, the viewpoint keeps switching back to the present dilemma, and back again. This makes for some confusing chronological conundrums. But it gets worse. Soon we are suffering from the ol’ flashback-within-a-flashback syndrome, which makes us twice as confused. So THE LONG NIGHT’s biggest weakness is poor narrative structure. The film is unclear about a few other things, too. The script gives vague hints that Joe has an affair with Charlene, and that Maximilian has seduced Jo-Ann. We do not learn the truth, however.

THE LONG NIGHT opens with a documentary-style montage of shots that show cites of industry . A narrator mentions the names of these cities: Gary, Indiana, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown Ohio. Then the camera settles on a another skyline of brick buildings and smokestacks. The narrator reveals that the name of this particular town (actually a well-designed Hollywood backlot) is not important, because the events of this film could happen anywhere. THE LONG NIGHT is not set any place particular. It goes down in a TWILIGHT ZONEish ‘anyplace’; an empty, existential dead zone of betrayed ideals. From this eerie, yet familiar nowhere, Director Litvak gives the film a sense of insecurity and ambiguity. Livak certainly knows how to generate suspense, which gives THE LONG NIGHT its devastating punch. With the character of Joe Adams, Litvak makes a statement about war veterans who have a hard time adjusting in society when the war is done. He also portrays the police department as a collection of soulless robots, who just want to annihilate their target. Some social commentary by Litvak perhaps?

Henry Fonda and Barbara Bel Geddes delivers emotionally gripping performances, with Fonda especially evoking a mixed reaction from the audience. His character is defined as the protagonist, and its hard not to feel sympathy for him. But on the other hand, he shoots Maximilian for no other reason than the guy was being annoying. If I shot everybody who annoyed me on a daily basis there would be a pretty high body count right now. Then, he refuses to give himself up to police custody. He’d rather fight and die, and perhaps take a few cops with him. But the story focuses on what a good guy and neighbor Joe is, so when this ugliness comes out of him, it really doesn’t endear him to you. Vincent Price is great as the cunning and wily Maximilian. He makes it his goal in life to annoy Joe and steal his girlfriend. This goal becomes his undoing, because Joe will have none of it. If you dig Price in his cowardly villain roles, you’ll dig THE LONG NIGHT. I also must praise the work of Ann Dvorak. She was Maximilian’s emotionally callused assistant, but she has far more gusto than he.

-  Darren Collette