The Long Night (film 1951)

On the day of his 17th birthday, classmates mock and taunt Georges Lehmain ( John Drew Barrymore ). Finally, he gets to his father’s bar Andy Lemein ( Preston Foster ), where he is greeted by regulars, and his father gives a birthday cake made in his honor. However, Georgie is surprised at the fact that Francis, the father’s girlfriend, did not come to the bar, and that her father took only two boxing tickets, although they usually went three together. Georgie’s questions about why Francis hasn’t been appearing for almost two weeks now, neither Andy himself, nor his long-time friend and partner, bartender Flanagan ( Howland Chamberlain ) give an answer. Soon, an old and lame presenter of the sports news column Al Judge ( Howard St. John ) appears in the bar, ordering Andy to step out of the bar, undress to the waist and kneel down. Strong and healthy, Andy unquestioningly follows the instructions of weak Al, after which he brutally beat the bartender on the back with the cane in front of the eyes of others. After Al’s departure, Flanagan helps Andy get up and go upstairs to the second floor, where he puts him on the bed. To Georgi's perplexed questions of why his father allowed himself to be so humiliated, Flanagan only answers that he had better forget about what he saw. Closing the bar after this, Georgie puts on his day-out jacket, tie and father’s hat, takes the revolver hidden there from the cash register and leaves for the street. He goes into a nearby office supply store to ask a well-known owner, Mr. Erlich ( Joseph Mell ), for a loan of 25 cents. Mr. Ehrlich asks Georgie to sit with his newborn baby for a few minutes until his wife returns from the store. Remaining in the children's room, Georgie takes a revolver from his pocket and rehearses in front of the mirror how he will talk with Al, threatening him with a weapon. When the baby begins to cry, Georgie gently takes him in his arms and shakes, and when the baby falls asleep, puts him back in the crib. Mrs. Ehrlich, who has caught this moment, is touched by Georgie's care and says that she will be lucky with the woman who will become his wife. When Georgie leaves, Mr. Ehrlich tells others how smart Andy is that he did not get involved in a fight with Judge.

Georgie arrives at the stadium where the boxing match is due to take place. In the crowd near the entrance, he sells his father a ticket to a stranger for $ 10. After a few seconds, someone in civilian clothes flies up to him, and posing as a police officer, accuses Georgie of illegally speculating with tickets. In order to get rid of the “policeman” who pressed him to the wall, the frightened Georgie gives him the top ten for the ticket. In the auditorium, Georgie’s neighbor is the man to whom he sold the ticket - Professor Lloyd Cooper ( Philippe Burnoff ), who teaches journalism at a local college. Cooper explains to Georgie that the money wasn’t taken by a cop, but by an ordinary fraudster, after which he gives the guy binoculars with which he finds Al Judge in the crowd, who takes place near the ring. After a fierce, but short-lived battle that lasted only 25 seconds, Cooper takes Georgie to a bar, where Judge usually happens. Soon, George notices Judge and goes after him to the toilet room, about to talk there. However, at the last moment, the same man enters the toilet, who took the money from Georgie before the start of the battle. As it turns out, he is a friend of Judge by the name of Beijingpo ( Emil Meyer ). He greets Judge, after which he leaves, and Pekinpo notices Georgie in the dressing room. Having decided that the guy is following him, hoping to get his money back, Beijingpo sharply and threateningly tells him a few words, and then throws him out of the toilet room. Cooper, who has already drunk decently, finds Georgie and persuades him to go to the Florida jazz club together, where he again treats him to a drink and introduces his girlfriend Julie Rostina ( Dorothy Camingor ). Julie, who is not happy that Cooper got drunk again and made her wait, invites the inexperienced Georgie to dance, after which Cooper replaces Georgie as her partner. Georgie is spellbound listening to the singing of a black jazz singer, which returns him to the memories of the festive cake that his father gave. When the dancers sit down at the tables, Julie says that her younger sister Marion returned home, to which Cooper notices that he and Marion have mutual antipathy. When the drummer performs a long solo during the next jazz performance, before her eyes, Georgi again has pictures of the beating of his father. After the club closes, all three go outside, where Georgie sees a singer walking her poodle . Georgie approaches her to express her admiration, but admits an awkward remark about the color of her skin, which spoils the woman's mood. Realizing his mistake, the upset Georgie gets in the taxi after Cooper and leaves for his house.

Some time later, Georgie wakes up on the couch in Cooper's apartment, where he is looked after by Marion ( Joan Lorring ), who already found a revolver in his pocket and just in case hid him behind books on a shelf. Asked by Georgie why she does not like Cooper, the girl replies that her father said that Cooper is a bad person, and her father never made mistakes in people. In response, Georgie says that he always considered his father a hero, but after today's incident he does not know how to relate to him. Soulful conversation leads to the fact that Georgie awkwardly kisses Marion, after which she notices that he lost his revolver. In a rage, Georgie begins to look for him, despite the attempts of Marion to persuade him not to do this. Finally, he finds a revolver, and, kissing Marion goodbye, goes out into the street.

Georgie arrives at the Daily Press, where he finds out from the head of the printing house the address where El can be. The guy gets in a taxi, and, threatening the driver with a revolver, he demands to take him to the specified address. He finds a house and a sign indicating that Francis, his father’s girlfriend, lives there. Georgie walks into the house and bursts into her apartment, seeing Al there. The reporter recalls that he saw Georgie at a boxing match and suspects that he came to him in search of Pekingpo robbing him. However, when Georgie pulls out a revolver, Al realizes that the matter is something else and asks for clarification of how he knows Francis. It turns out that Francis was Al's sister, and she died a week ago. Now Al must free her apartment from furniture and things. When Georgie explains that he is Andy Lemeyn’s son and came to get even for the humiliation of his father, Al asks why his father himself did not come. Then he answers this question himself - because it is the fault of her death. Francis thought Andy would marry her, but he refused her, after which she was poisoned. Hearing this, Georgie throws a revolver in her hearts and is about to leave. However, Al picks up a revolver and directs it at the guy, while about to call his father. Georgie grabs her weapon, there is a short skirmish, as a result of which a booming shot and Al falls to the floor. Deciding that he shot the journalist, Georgie picks up the revolver and runs out into the street. He runs to Cooper's house, where he tells Marion that he shot Al. Then he tells the girl that his father is a good man, but they rarely spoke heart to heart, and they never spoke to each other about how they love each other. Marion sympathizes with him and understands the motives of his behavior, but strongly disagrees that he decided to use weapons to solve his problems. Marion leads Georgie to Cooper, to whom the guy talks about what happened and asks for his help. Asleep Cooper cannot believe what Georgie is saying. When the meaning of his words comes to him, Cooper immediately drives the guy out of the house and demands that he forget that they met at all. Cooper says this is the best he can do for Georgie, as he actually needs to report him to the police. Georgie comes to church, but the priest leaves for an urgent call and asks him to wait. When policemen enter the church, Georgie runs away in fear, eventually getting to her own home. Realizing what was happening, Andy quickly undresses his son and puts him to bed, and he puts on his jacket. Soon there are cops who detain Andy on suspicion of attacking Al. Father takes all the blame on himself, but Georgie jumps out of bed and screams to the police that he shot Judge. The police report that Al is alive and received only a powder burn, and Andy is taken away only for interrogation. Georgie accuses her father of the death of Francis and demands to explain why he did not marry her. Andy replies that he could not marry, as he is still married to his mother Georgie, who actually did not die, as he thought, but ran away with her lover when Georgie was still very young. The father explains that he loved the mother, and did not tell his son anything, because he did not want him to hate her. Georgie gives the revolver to the police, who pick up both Lemeins to deliver to the station.

As movie historian Arthur Lyons wrote, Joseph Losey “passed the director’s test in the early 1950s, putting such noir as the Dividing Line ” (1950), “ M ” (1951, a remake of the classic Fritz Lang film), “Long night "(1951) and" Thief "(1951). He showed himself to be a masterful director, but his American career put an end to the McCarthy hearings when he was branded a communist and blacklisted in Hollywood . He was forced to emigrate to the UK , where in the end he was able to raise his career to a new level ” ^[1] . According to Dennis Schwartz, “this is the last film put on the blacklist of Joseph Losey in America before his European link. Subsequently, Losey became widely known thanks to his European films “ Servant ” (1963), “ Accident ” (1967) and “ Mediator ” (1971) ” ^[2] .

According to the New York Times movie reviewer Bosley Krauser , the lead actor in the film, John Drew Barrymore, was the son of the famous theater and film actor John Barrymore ^[3] , he is also the father of actress Drew Barrymore ^{[4] [5]} . According to the American Institute of Motion Picture Arts , "this was the first film in which the name of John Drew Barrymore was indicated in the credits above the title, which indicated his first major role" ^[6] . During his career, which predominantly covered the 1950s and 1960s, John Drew Barrymore played in nearly 30 films, among which the noir films “ While the City Sleeps ” (1956) and “ Shadow on the Window ” (1957), the crime drama “ School secrets ”(1958), as well as several Italian thrillers of the first half of the 1960s ^[7] .

Joan Lorring is known for such noir films as “ Verdict ” (1946), “ Three Strangers ” (1947), “ Missed Moment ” (1947) and “ Gangster ” (1947) ^[8] .

The film was based on the novel by Stanley Ellin, “The Limit of Terror” (1948) ^[2] .

According to Schwartz, Losey complained that "the producer of the picture, Waxman, excluded the flashbacks that he planned, and forced Losey to make the presentation in a strictly chronological order, which slightly weakened the sharpness of the film" ^[2] .

When the film was released, only Joseph Losey and Stanley Ellin were listed as authors of the script. The names of Black Lardner Jr. and Hugo Butler, who were also co-authors of the script, were not blacklisted . Their contribution to the scripting of the film was officially restored by the Guild of Scriptwriters of the USA only in 2000 ^[6] .

Overall rating of the film

After the film was released, the New York Times film reviewer Bosley Krauser described it as a “gloomy, pretentious melodrama,” whose hero is an “inexperienced and fearful young man” - “is captured by dull and depressing suffering,” looking for a man who is cruelly in the middle of the night beat his father. "Having hardly got through a series of ridiculous and absurd situations, the young man finds out that his father was already expecting this beating." Krauser calls the picture “nothing more than a presumptuous and far-fetched story without any clarification of the character or theme posed by Joseph Losey in a defiantly ostentatious style and played by a group of professional actors as if they were in a lesson at a theater school” ^[3] .

Modern cinema expert Allen Silver noted that the film is “burdened by a narrative structure that is at times consciously allegorical,” but in general it can be considered a film noir because of the “relations that it establishes between the protagonist and the changing world around him.” According to Silver, “a half-odyssey, half-vendetta Georgie leads him to several unfamiliar situations - metaphorically speaking as a transitional rite from adolescence to adult” ^[9] . According to Steve Press, the film “appears to a large extent as a kind of growing up story, where George’s pay for growing up is disappointment in his humiliated father. Armed with this knowledge and a more accurate understanding of his capabilities, Georgie is now better prepared to overcome the rejection, humiliation and sadomasochistic relations of the noir world surrounding him ” ^[10] . Spencer Selby called the film “a unique, touching film about the hero in search of maturity in a harsh, insensitive world” ^[11] , and Michael Keeney believes that the film “is at times painfully slow, but interesting” ^[4] . Dennis Schwartz described the picture as "a hysterical melodrama about revenge, which pretends to be a film noir because of the gloomy world of villains and scum that inhabits it." According to the critic, the picture "suffers from excessive theatricality and pretentiousness of the script of Losey and Ellin" ^[2] .

Film Symbols

According to Schwartz, the picture can be seen in several different ways - as a film of growing up, as a critical view of a weapon that can make a person dangerous, as a warning of possible fatal consequences in the absence of proper contact between the child and the parent, and as an “allegory of the repressive society of America” ^[2] . Schwartz notes that in the film, each significant character is a symbol of something. In particular, "the name of Judge (in English -" judge ") speaks for itself, it is a person who considers himself above the law." He demonstrates this "during his sadistic outburst and sarcastic judgments about good and evil." Georgie's father is “a big man who weakly obeys punishment from someone who considers himself a judge. He is seen as a symbol of America, who succumbed to red-handed gangsters such as Senator McCarthy . And the naive and innocent George is seen as America’s last hope, which is capable of looking at things with a fresh, clear look. He is a lost good guy who is so estranged that he cannot understand how this world functions. Brought up in an isolated society of his father’s friends, he is forced to become an adult when he goes to the dark city streets, passes in the shadow of massive oil storages, where a person seems a dwarf, attends boxing fights, where fans scream, demanding blood, and dark people are engaged in fraud, sitting at night eateries and wretched apartments, and visits a noisy press room, where it is so noisy that he is unable to think clearly ” ^[2] .

Silver draws attention to the fact that “Judge’s cane (as well as his name) and Andy Lamein’s pistol (which gives him confidence in George’s pocket) become easily readable images of corrupting power, and the drinking professor at Cooper College symbolizes intellectual decadence .” Peers ritually beat Georgie, torn from them, who takes refuge in the bar of his father, where his birthday is celebrated. However, soon Georgie gets another cruel and humiliating blow when this holiday, symbolizing adulthood, is destroyed by the beating of Judge by his father. Georgie fixes her indignation at Judge ^[9] . The persecution of Judge takes Georgie out of his usual habitat, and “takes him to the boxing arena, in a cafe, night club and newspaper office. His humiliation from Pakinpo, followed by a boxing match, drinking and finally a deafening roar in the press center add up to a deadly attack on Georgie’s feelings, culminating in a clash with Judge ” ^[12] .

According to Silver, “all these scenes are emphasized by visual directness and periodic lateral consecration of a close-up of Georgie at the time of his indecision. After Judge is shot dead, Georgie unexpectedly discovers the noir panorama of the city, which had previously been hidden from him by his rage and night. His dwarf figure moves past the sinister buildings, barely outlined by the dawn, entering and leaving the shadows of such massive structures as oil storage facilities. The last ritual act after refusing to obtain asylum in Rostina’s apartment, becomes his confirmation . According to the laws of noir, this cannot be a simple, painless slap on the cheek; justification of the father and surrender of the police is required ” ^[12] .

Actor rating

According to Krauser, “ John Barrymore Jr. plays the role of a helpless youth and future avenger, and the best that can be said about his game is that it is no worse than the film itself. Preston Foster is grim in the role of father, and Howard St. John is arrogant in the role of the man who beats him. Philip Burnef is inarticulate as a drunken professor, and Joan Lorring is a sugary as a benevolent girl. ” As Krauser notes, “it seems that all the actors were preoccupied exclusively with the theatrical effectiveness of their roles and completely forgot about the story itself with its special outlook on life and intellectual content” ^[3] .

• Alain Silver (Editor), Elizabeth Ward (Editor). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the 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 ref = Selby.
• 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 .
• Arthur Lyons. Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir . - Boston, MA: Da Capo Press, 2000 .-- ISBN 978-0-3068-0996-5 .

• Long night at IMDb  
• Long night at AllMovie  
• A long night on the website of the American Film Institute
• Long night at Turner Classic Movies