Nocturne (film, 1946)

In his chic mansion on the Hollywood Hills, popular composer and playboy Keith Vincent ( Edward Ashley ) meets a woman who is called Dolores. Playing the melody devoted to her, which he called “Nocturne”, the composer tells that he had quite a few women, and he dedicated a song to each of them, and then broke off relations with them. The whale offers Dolores to travel alone to the resort at his expense, and to complete their relationship. At that moment, a shot is heard, and Keith drops dead at the piano. The investigation was entrusted to lieutenant Heberson ( Walter Sand ), who, on the basis of Keith's prints on the handle of a revolver and traces of gunpowder on his sleeve, immediately concluded that it was suicide. Present at the crime scene investigation, his colleague Joe Warne ( George Raft ) doubts that everything is so simple. In his opinion, Kit did not have the motive to commit suicide, as he was rich, had an excellent home and enjoyed great success with women. In addition, at the time of the murder, he worked on another Nocturne composition, the notes of which were on the piano music stand, and also ordered his servant Euhemio (Rudi Robles) to buy various household goods that he intended to use. Joe draws attention to a whole gallery of portraits of young attractive women on the wall in the living room of Keith. Euhemio explains that these are the former girlfriends of the owner, whose real names he does not know, since Keith called them all the name “Dolores”. After finding out the identities of the women, Joe bypasses them in turn, suggesting that some of them might have a motive to kill Keith, but it turns out that all women had a firm alibi at the time of the murder. Joe returns to Keith's apartment to hang the photos in place, noting that another photo was hung on the wall recently. Finding out that all the portraits for Keith were made by renowned photographer Charles Shawn ( John Banner ), Joe establishes through him the name of the last girl, actress Francis Ransom ( Lynn Bari ). During the meeting, in the chic outdoor pool, Francis tells in detail what she did on the day of Keith's death, thereby showing that she has a solid alibi. However, when checking the alibi, Joe finds out that it was pre-fabricated. At this point, the police chief announces Joe a warning for self-will and inadmissible interrogation of witnesses, and orders him to work exclusively under the supervision of Lieutenant Heberson. However, ignoring the instructions of the head of the investigative team, Joe again goes to Francis, inviting her to the Cybord nightclub, where, as it turns out, the younger sister Francis named Carol Page ( Virginia Houston ) acts as a singer. Joe, who picked up Keith's notes, asks Ford's club pianist Ned Fingers ( Joseph Pevny ) to play the unfinished Nocturne, and Ned immediately guesses who the author was. Joe, meanwhile, is watching the sisters' reaction to music, while Francis shows a restrained interest, and Carol, on the contrary, begins to noticeably nervous and drops her glass. After completing work, Joe is called to take Carol home. On the way, he finds out that Carol heard Frances play this song and also knows that Vincent had a sister on the night of his death. Carol also says that Francis took her picture off the wall in Keith’s living room shortly after he threw it, that is, about a week before his death. Joe again comes to Francis, directly asking, "how she did it," but Francis denies everything. When Joe goes out, a bouncer from the Cybord club named Eric Thorpe ( Bern Hoffman ), who brutally beats the detective, attacks him. Once in the hospital, Joe encounters Susan Flanders ( Mirna Dell ), Keith’s housewife and former thief. She was also severely beaten this evening, but she refuses to explain what happened to her. Mother Joe ( Maybelle Page ), who is actively involved in discussing her son’s affairs, suggests that there could be two shots at the time of the murder, the second of which was single when someone put a revolver in the hand of Keith who was shot and again shot at already existing wound. Joe finds Francis on the set, again trying to get the truth from her, but she denies all his assumptions, insisting on his innocence. Soon, Joe by phone is invited to Shawn on urgent business. Upon arrival, Joe sees that Shawn is hung in his workshop. When the police appear in the house, Joe hides unnoticed, noting before leaving that Shawon's diary is open on the page with Francis address. Detective immediately comes home to Francis, finding her in a semi-conscious state, as someone tried to poison her with gas. Joe opens the windows on time and turns off the gas, saving Francis from death. Hearing the sound of police sirens, Joe picks up a confession note attached to a typewriter, Francis, in which she “confesses” to the murder of Keith. Joe quickly arrives at the Cybord Club, where Thorpe, who again beats the detective brutally, again attacks him. However, Joe manages to grab a pot of hot coffee and splash it in Thorpe’s face. While he wakes up, Joe beats the bully several times on the head, and then locks him in the room. Returning to the auditorium, Joe finds Carol, accusing her of killing Whale, as he managed to find out that she had an affair with the composer, and he dedicated Nocturne to her. Carol tries to deny everything, but is lost when the live Francis enters the club. In the end, Joe forces Fingers, who turned out to be Carol's husband, to confess that he killed Keith out of jealousy, then killed Shawn as a dangerous witness, and tried to kill Frances, who could have guessed everything. After that, Fingers pulls out a revolver and is about to shoot Joe, but he manages to grab hold of a weapon. A fight begins between the men, at which point the police appear at the club, arresting Fingers and Carol, as well as Thorpe, who worked for Fingers. Francis is removed from all suspicions, and she embraces Joe, who no longer hides that he is in love with her.

As the film historian Hal Ericson noted, “The producer of this grim detective melodrama was Joan Harrison , who for many years worked in the team of Alfred Hitchcock ” ^[1] . According to Frank Miller, "she began working in the industry in 1933, when Hitchcock hired her as his secretary. After receiving invaluable mastery lessons from the suspense master, she eventually rose to the screenwriter of such classic films as Rebecca ," Foreign correspondent "(both - 1940) and" Suspicion "(1941) ^[2] . Then, according to Miller, she began to work independently, becoming a producer of the classic noir" Lady Ghost "(1944), as well as another film noir" Strange thing uncle Harry "(1945), both paintings put Robert Siodmak and Studio Universal ^[2] . As stated on the website of the American Film Institute , "Nocturne" was the first work of Harrison for the studio RKO Pictures , and, according to the " Hollywood Reporter ", in addition to the producer responsibility she took part in the work on the script for this ^{[ 3]} According to Miller, at that time Harrison was only one of three female producers in Hollywood (the other two were Harriet Parsons and Virginia Van App ). Later, Harrison returned to Hitchcock as a producer of his perennial television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1962) and Alfred Hitchcock's Hour (1962-1965) ^[2] .

Jeff Mayer writes that screenwriter Jonathan Latimer achieved fame by writing a script for the film Noir's Glass Key (1942) for Paramount’s studio based on the Deshill Hammett novel. During World War II, he served in the Navy , and then moved to La Hoiu , where he became a close friend of Raymond Chandler and his wife Kiss. Over the next three years, Latimer wrote several noir movie scenarios for the RKO and Paramount film companies, including Nocturne (1946), “ They Won't Believe Me ” (1947, the producer was Harrison), “ Big Watch ” (1948) and “ One Thousand Nights Eye ”(1948) based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich ^[4] .

According to film historian David Hogan, since the early 1930s, Edwin L. Marin has established himself as a “skillful, though not an outstanding director of films of categories B and B +, remembering the strong adaptation of the family fairy tale Christmas Carol (1938). In the 1940s, Marin successfully worked with Raft twice more - on the films “Noir Johnny Angel ” (1945) and “ Street Race ” (1948) ” ^[5] .

As Frank Miller points out, this film “was one of the many attempts by George Raft to get rid of the gangster image sticking to him. Although the actor grew up in the New York district of Hellish Kitchen and achieved the first major success on the screen as the assistant Paul Mooney in the gangster noir " The Scarface " (1932), Raft was tired of constantly being in the role of a bloody bandit. " In addition to the numerous gangster roles in the films of the 1930s, the image of Rafta was negatively influenced by the fact that he counted among his friends several real gangsters, in particular, Bugsy Siegel . As in the case of Nocturne, Raft more than once and “not always reasonably insisted on making changes to the scenarios of his films in order to make his characters more pleasant” ^[2] .

According to Miller, for the B film, “the cast was excellent, starting with the lead singer Lynn Bari, who earned the title of“ film queen B ”. Signing a contract with 20th Century Fox , Bari quickly took a typical second-level actress role, playing supporting roles in category A films and leading roles in category B movies. In category A films, she was often taken as the “other woman” who was trying to kidnap the hero of such stars as Alice Fay in " Hello, Frisco, Hello " (1943) and Linda Darnell - in " Sweet and Nasty " (1944). However, in films of category B she always received her character, although usually these were smaller stars, such as Preston Foster and Raft ^[2] . For the filming of this film, RKO studio rented Bari from Twentieth Century-Fox ^[3] .

Virginia Houston debuted as the sister of Bari and the singer suspected of the murder, who, according to Miller, was a “promising actress who soon played Noir from the Past films (1947), Flamingo Path (1949), Racket (1951) and " Sudden Fear " (1952), and also performed the role of the main character Jane in the adventure film " Flies of Tarzan " (1951) with Lex Barker as the ape-man. " However, after a car accident in 1950 and marriage in 1952, Houston ended its film career ^[2] .

According to the American Film Institute, “the film also became the acting debut of Joseph Pevni, who played in several films before becoming a successful director in film and especially on television” ^[3] . As Miller writes, after playing the role of “crazy pianist Fingers” in this film, he played a pair of top-level noir films, such as Body and Soul (1947) with John Garfield , and “ Thieves Highway ” (1949) with Richard Conte , then went to the director. Among his most famous films are Meet Danny Wilson (1952) with Frank Sinatra and The Man with a Thousand Persons (1957) with James Cagney as Lon Cheney . In the end, he switched to television, where he staged several dozen episodes of popular television series, including Star Trek (1967-1968) and Bonanza (1968-1972) ^[2] .

Such a reliable category B performers, such as Maybel Peydzh in the role of Raft's mother, as well as Jack Norton , who “gave his usual type in the episodic role of a drunkard,” round out the cast ^[2] .

The Hollywood Reporter Magazine reported that the shootings were supposed to be on “all Hollywood,” including the popular Pantages movie theater, the Hollywood Studio Club hostel for young women in the movie business, and the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard on Vine Street, which was a concentration site at that time. many organizations in the field of film and radio ^[3] .

According to Hal Erikson, “like the previous Raft picture on RKO , Johnny Angel , this film showed excellent commercial results, bringing a profit of 568 thousand dollars” ^{[1] [3]} .

Overall film score

After the release of the picture, Variety magazine gave it a high rating, writing that "this is a detective thriller with a tough atmosphere, a lot of action and suspense, which is provided by Edwin L. Marina directing." Although, in the opinion of the author of the review, “there is some ambiguity as to how all the threads of the narrative are interconnected, however, this seems to be caused by cuts due to the need to film the film in a compressed 86 minutes of time” ^[6] .

The modern film historian Adam Bregman called the film “quick, funny, but sometimes cliché-faced noir” ^[7] , and Spencer Selby described it as “an interesting and sharp search movie of truth by the main character combining conventions and images typical of noir” ^[8] . Miller emphasizes that the film "achieved unexpected success, earning more than half a million dollars during the first screen release," which was achieved "thanks to the atmospheric and grim direction, skill of the producer and a group of strong actors of category B". He also notes “the noir style of the painting and the canonical presence of former Warner Bros star George Raft as a police detective who risks his work in order to prove to the authorities that he is wrong” ^[2] . According to Hogan, this is “an underestimated Marina film,” in which “the preoccupation with female images is, of course, taken straight from Laura ” (where the police detective is tempted by the portrait of the deceased character). But if a detective in “Laura” wants a specific woman, then a detective in “Nocturne“ wants any woman ” ^[9] .

TimeOut magazine also notes that the film "tramples the same land as Laura". In this picture, the hero Raft in his restrained manner “turns the investigation into an obsession”, and “spurred on by photographs of the victim’s mistresses, follows the typical fetishist path” ^[10] . Dennis Schwartz also rated the film as "an inexpensive version on the theme of the film noir" Laura "." According to the critic, "this is a fast and energetic film that squeezes the most out of the murder investigation, providing a deep immersion in the lives of those on the Hollywood periphery" when "the viewer is invited to travel through typical nightclubs of the 1940s and various types of housing that time, depending on the income level of their owners " ^[11] .

Visual Film Solution

Alan Silver drew attention to the "initial long wandering survey of the landscape model of the Hollywood Hills," which ends in front of the window of a lonely house. Then the camera penetrates the room to the man at the piano, and “when she comes close to him from behind, a shot is fired at close range from a pistol to the head. The camera seems to be attracted by the sound of the piano, holds the visual tension during the long take and takes the viewer with a surprise with a gun shot, after which the take abruptly ends " ^[12] . Hogan also highlights this episode of the film, where “Marin, Wilde and special effects operator Russell A. Callie worked brilliantly together. From a long distance we get a divine night view of the modernist house of the mid-twentieth century, which stands on the edge of one of the Hollywood hills (most likely it was a combination of miniature models, drawing, combination shooting and live action). As the camera slowly descends from above, the dark landscape becomes more and more detailed, and soon a tiny figure appears in the illuminated window of the house. As the camera falls below, giving an increasingly close-up view, the viewer can see the details of the exterior of the house and the person inside who is sitting at the piano. The camera continues to move forward and down, passing through the window and finding itself inside the room. The eye of the camera gracefully jumps over the man’s left shoulder and around his head, revealing the shadowed figure of a woman in black who sits silently in the background. The man, whose name is Vincent, speaks a few ordinary words to a woman. Only after this, the editor Elmo Williams cuts the double. It makes a strong impression. ” Soon "there is another spectacular scene where Vincent and his grand piano appear to the right in the background of the frame, while slender female legs and high heels dominate the front and left." In all of this, according to Hogan, one feels "sex, mystery and hidden threat - in general, pure noir" ^[5] . Hogan generally considers this picture "one of the best Marina films" due to the visual solutions he found. As the critic writes, “the director and cameraman often very ingeniously play with large, medium and backdrops in the frame, transferring the semantic load to the object of interest with the help of the focus.” In this case, " Harry Wilde 's camera moves quickly and succinctly in a delightfully dim light." And finally, “the scene in which Warne discovers the body in the photographer’s blurred atelier is an alarming combination of dark corners, unusual noises and outright horror” ^[5] .

Joe Warne's Personality Score

Silver notes that the audience was initially aware that the murder was committed, but Warn does not know about it, but nevertheless, for some reason he is sure that it was not suicide, as his leadership immediately concluded. According to the film expert, “by separating the viewer from the main character in this way,” the director transforms “the investigation of Warne from the viewpoint of the viewer not so much into the revelation of the murder as in finding out what inspires Warne himself for such obsessive behavior, which however does not receive an exhaustive explanations. " According to Silver, the noir logic of the picture suggests that Warne is not so much interested in catching a criminal as “fascinated by the victim’s way of life”. On the wall of the dear composer’s dear home are pictures of numerous victims of his amorous victories, and this picture comes into sharp “contrast with the modest interior of Warn’s little house where he lives with his mother.” Silver believes that “Warn’s admiration can be roughly compared admiringly police detective McPherson in " Laura ", but the desire to Frances Warne, of course, is not so compelling "According to Silver," to a certain extent Warne, especially in a low-key manner Raft games -. it is a mystery ve. he searches in nightclubs, backstage rooms and even kinopavillon, but never reveals his own motives. In fact, Warne is more interested in the fact of the investigation than in its result. Because if the composer is the real reason for his obsession, then he needs to investigate listen to his songs and track down his women. ”Warne’s existential drama exists only within the framework of his investigation, and“ when the search is completed and the killer is caught, the second essence of Warne ceases to exist ” ^[12] .

Hogan describes Joe Warne as "a dedicated, sometimes overly eager cop who lives with his mother," and is already "ripe for becoming a possessed woman." The critic notes that “Warn repeatedly refers to portraits of beautiful women — he is not only looking for a murderer, he is looking for love.” ^[9] According to Schwartz, “Raft is irresistible as a detective from Los Angeles who is obsessed with tracking down the killer of a playboy composer. It seems that the victim lived the life that Raft would like to have. However, he is stuck in a low-paying job, lives with his mother in a modest home and is not able to communicate with a Hollywood-type beauty she can only dream of. He does not have a permanent girl in his mundane life, until Lynn Bari completely captures his attention ” ^[11] . According to Bregman, “Warne is engrossed in a suicide case, confident that this is a murder. In the course of his ruthless investigation, he loses his job and hits another cop. The film does not explain why he is so absorbed in this matter, but this is typical of many police melodramas. In this case, his obsession is a bit excessive, but it is fun ” ^[7] .

Actor Assessment

Most critics praised the acting in the film. In particular, in the review of Variety it was noted that “ Raft appears in the form of a tough detective, the stubbornness of which leads to the disclosure of the murder, originally regarded as suicide. In his signature leisurely, but tough style, he achieves a very strong performance of his role. The second star of the film, Lynn Bari , who for the most part of the film is the main suspect, also skillfully copes with her work. Virginia Houston is interesting in the role of the sister of Bari and the singer, performing three songs in the course of the action ” ^[6] .

Adam Bregman believes that “the film contains Raft’s outstanding acting work as a detective who breaks all the rules and lives with his mother, as well as Bari as a femme fatale in a mink coat who doesn’t go beyond her words. Between them there is a real chemistry, and their game keeps the film at a level, even when the plot gives slack. Bari is great as a hunter for wealth, which almost knocks him out of a murder case. ” ^[7]

Hogan also believes that “Raft and Bari are good in pairs”, while he stands out “with his restraint of emotions and powerful charisma, and she with his mysterious wide-set eyes, vague remarks and wit” ^[5] . According to Keeney, “Raft gives a good restrained game, creating the image of a quiet, unwieldy detective who lives with an elderly mother, who herself acts as an amateur detective” ^[13] .

• Alain Silver (Editor), Elizabeth Ward (Editor). Film Noir: An American Style, Third Edition . - Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, 1992. - ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 .
• Spencer Selby. Dark City: The Film Noir . - Jeffeson, NC: McFarland & Co Inc, 1997. - ISBN 978-0-7864-0478-0 .
• Michael F. Keaney. Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940–1959 . - Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2003. - ISBN 978-0-7864-1547-2 .
• David J. Hogan. Film Noir FAQ: Hollywood's Golden Age of Dames, Detectives, and Danger . - Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2013. - ISBN 978-1-4803-4305-4 .
• Geoff Mayer and Brian McDonnell. Encyclopedia of Film Noir . - Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007. - ISBN 978-0-3133-3306-4 .

• Nocturne on the site IMDb  
• Nocturne on AllMovie website  
• Nocturne on the website of the American Film Institute
• Nocturne on Turner Classic Movies