Fear in the Night **** (1947, Paul Kelly, DeForest Kelley, Ann Doran) – Classic Movie Review 8395

Writer-director Maxwell Shane’s 1947 black and white film noir Fear in the Night is a neat, enjoyable little puzzle thriller with an exceptionally satisfying plot about a bank clerk called Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelley) who has a nightmare that he has killed a man.

[Spoiler alert] Vince starts to think the dream was true, but his cop brother-in-law Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly) dismisses his story, and then it turns out that he was actually hypnotised into murdering someone.

Ann Doran plays his sympathetic sister Lil Herlihy, Paul Kelly plays her hubby, Jeff York plays the deputy sheriff Deputy Torrence, Robert Emmett Keane plays the hypnotist Lewis Belknap, aka Harry Byrd, Kay Scott plays Betty Winters and Charles Victor plays Captain Warner.

Shane’s screenplay is based on a clever William Irish (Cornell Woolrich) story called Nightmare, unusually focusing on a brother-in-law brother-in-law relationship, and the film is remade by Shane as Nightmare in 1956, in a fairly rare case of a director remaking his own movie. Frank Paul Sylos, who does the art direction, also did it for Nightmare.

It is Kelley’s feature film debut, aged 27.

Also in the cast are Janet Warren as Mrs Dorothy Belknap, Richard Keene as Mr Kern, Michael Harvey as Bob Clune, John Harmon as Clyde Bilyou, Julia Faye, Stanley Farrar, Chris Drake, Leander De Cordova, Jack Collins and Stuart Holmes.

Loyette Thomson, Joey Ray and Gladys Blake had their scenes deleted.

Fear in the Night is directed by Maxwell Shane, runs 72 minutes, is made by Pine-Thomas Productions, is released by Paramount, is written by Maxwell Shane, based on the William Irish (Cornell Woolrich) story Nightmare, is shot in black and white by Jack Greenhalgh, is produced by William H Pine and William C Thomas, is scored by Rudy Schrager and is designed by Frank Paul Sylos.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8395

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