Clash by Night
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Movie Reviews of Clash by Night
Movie Review: SMOLDERING MELODRAMA. RYAN AND STANWYCK EXQUISITE!!!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Most reviewers of this film seem to have 'gotten it' with respect to the film's undeniable stance in both Robert Ryan and Fritz Lang's careers. Both celebrities enjoy considerable cult status, and they united for the film, which, along with Barbara Stanwyck's jaded portrait of a fallen woman, achieved a cinema realism that was rare in those days. The film was another example of RKO's attempts to bring outstanding films to the screen. One would be hard pressed to find another studio that so consistently sought artistic merit, dissimilar from studios like Warner Brothers, which catered more to mass interest.
The love triangle involving Ryan, Stanwyck and Paul Douglas, seems entirely plausible then and now. It is amazing to see that the sexual attraction between Ryan and Stanwyck was conveyed without the de rigueur explicit romp in the hay that predominates any film made in the last thirty years. If the viewer wants to see some real sexual tension without the overtness viewers are subjected to these days to get them to watch what's out there, simply watch the scene in which Ryan and Stanwyck engage in a short but heated embrace. One doesn't need to see anything more than Stanwyck's hand clutching Ryan's bare back underneath his T-shirt to envision what happens next.
The addition of secondary players, Marilyn Monroe and Keith Andes, likewise didn't need to achieve its sexual effect in the blatant manner employed in films these days. J. Carrol Naish's devilish Uncle Vince was also a tour de force for this wonderful character actor, and Silvio Minciotti effectively portrayed Paul Douglas's lonely widowed father.
Add to these dynamics a wonderful screenplay, sharply written and without a maudlin word to it. Lang's direction is, without question, faultless, and I can't think of a false move anywhere in the film. Paul Douglas ably portrays the thankless role of the cuckolded husband, and he engenders sympathy for his trusting nature.
However, above all, this is an example of another RKO film in which Robert Ryan's presence elevates the proceedings from a B grade to an A+ grade. The scene in which he is seen at his most intensely lonely moment needs to be seen to be appreciated, when his character, the lonely Earl Pfeiffer, is scorned by Stanwyck's Mae Doyle at her wedding. His descent downstairs at the wedding reception is a classic 'Ryan' vignette of him enacting the quintessential 'film noir' spirit of desperate loneliness, a scene that sticks in one's mind far into the future after the movie is over. In fact, every scene involving Ryan is amazing, and it doesn't seem possible that anyone could find fault with his performance, unless their judgment is seriously lacking.
Movie Review: The Lives, Loves and Times of the Working Class
Summary: 5 Stars
Barbara Stanwyck is one of the greatest actresses of all time, "Stella Dallas", "Double Indemnity", "Sorry, Wrong Number" and "Christmas in Connecticut" being her best. This powerful film is right up there with all of those.
Set in the time it was made, in the fishing village of Monterrey, California, we are given a glimpse of the rough-and-tumble everyday lives of blue-collar workers. It's kind of depressing, like Pensacola, Florida. Poor people fight loudly and don't have a lot of class, like Robert Ryan with his Asian impersonation (which even I, who enjoy an ethnic joke every now and then, who doesn't?, thought was offensive). But then, that was totally in character of him to do so, being the ne'er-do-well drifter he was. The only reason Stanwyck slept with him was out of boredom and he was probably good in the sack, too (she had slept with a politician, after all); Paul Douglas, though sweet, was probably too gentle for her. She liked 'em rough and dangerous.
The imagery in this was stunning (some would say including Marilyn Monroe, but I never thought she was that good-looking--give me Jean Simmons anyday). I used to think Marilyn couldn't act, but it was obvious once she became famous, they put her in garbage like "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" and the like, but her performance in "Niagara" and "Don't Bother to Knock", the latter, although not one of my favorite films, was one of her best performances because she was essentially playing herself.
Anyway, back to my review. The moral of the story is that just because we say we're this or that, warning people that this is the way we are, you'll just have to take me as I am, isn't a license to hurt people, because Mae still chose to marry Jerry and make a baby with him and whether she likes it or not, Gloria (the baby) is her responsibility now and she owes it to Jerry to try to work things out. She wouldn't be happy with Earl and she knows it, because even though she may think she loves him, he was just convenient, just as she was for him. I think he just liked sticking it to Jerry, who he had no respect for because he saw him as weak. He preyed upon Mae's dissatisfaction with her oppressive life.
Keith Andes (who is a dead ringer for Skip Homeier, who appeared in a few "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episodes) played her boorish, and probably physically abusive brother, who marries Marilyn, finishes off this great cast. This film is in my top twenty-five of the greatest movies ever, I cannot recommend it enough. It draws you in and holds you there, and makes you think about it long after the credits have rolled. Wonderful, wonderful film.
Movie Review: "Love is rotten when it happens like this ..."
Summary: 5 Stars
Movie: ***** DVD Transfer: *** Extras: *****
Pungent, brilliantly acted romantic melodrama about a world-weary woman (Barbara Stanwyck) who returns to the small fishing community where she was raised, and finds herself torn between the man she marries for security (Paul Douglas) and his embittered, iconoclastic best friend (Robert Ryan). Adapted from a stage play by Clifford Odets, "Clash by Night" offered Stanwyck one of her best roles of the early 1950's, and she responded by delivering a richly textured, superbly nuanced performance that won her the year's Laurel Award from the Motion Picture Exhibitors of America. The always interesting Ryan was shown to good advantage as Stanwyck's emotionally stunted lover, and the film also provided meaty supporting roles to newcomer Keith Andes and rising star Marilyn Monroe as Stanwyck's rough-edged brother and his spirited girlfriend. Tightly directed by master craftsman Fritz Lang, the movie also benefits from Nicholas Musuraca's expert cinematography (much of the movie was filmed on location in Monterrey, CA) and Roy Webb's moody musical score.
In terms of video quality, the DVD presentation of this taut drama is just barely acceptable, and certainly not up to Warner Home Video's usual high standard. Various sections of the film are plagued with black lines of vertical noise running up and down the screen, and some scenes feature poorly rendered black and white contrast. Having previously owned VHS and LaserDisc releases of this title, I can attest that there exist better prints from which WHV might have mastered the DVD. The disc also includes the rarely seen Original Theatrical Trailer, and a very interesting commentary track by director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich who introduces portions of an old (but fascinating) interview he once conducted with Fritz Lang regarding the making of the film. Despite the annoying flaws in the master print, the quality of the movie itself and the wonderful bonus features on the disc make this DVD worthy of inclusion in your home library of classic movies.
Movie Review: Women Trapped In Working-Class Marriages
Summary: 5 Stars
Mae Doyle (Barbara Stanwyck), a woman who once had big-city ambitions for a wealthy marriage, is forced to come back to her home town in defeat and has resigned herself to a drab marriage to decent, but boring Jerry D'Amato. It was only a matter of time before she falls for Jerry's friend Earl. Earl's better looking than Jerry and shares Mae's longing for a larger life. Like so many supposedly politically progressive social dramas of the time, Odet's play overly valorizes working-class men and ridicules women who have legitimate reasons to be dissatisfied with their dreary lives and their husbands' sometimes brutal behavior towards them. Mae probably should have stayed in the city and gotten a job instead of resigning herself to this glum marriage, but now that she has a baby that's water under the bridge. Her life is so impoverished that when Earl buys her rayon nightgowns, she keeps them in the gift box and hides them in the bottom of the dresser like a special treat. Marilyn Monroe plays her friend Peggy--a girl who, unlike Mae, has an easier time resigning herself to a small-town life with a man who compensates for his low social status by putting down women and being the "man" of the house. But Mae expects more from life.
Fritz Lang's direction and Stanwyck's nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of Mae give this film an emotional complexity that puts it a cut above the usual kitchen sink melodrama. Mae goes back to her husband (after Earl shows that he's a heel with no interest in raising her child), but it's no happy ending. The film's tentative and unfinished ending gives the film a contemporary feel and poses an unanswered question that Odets and his left-wing male counterparts of the time were largely unwilling to face--their own stereotyped and demeaning attitudes towards women.
Movie Review: Waves Crash as Passions Flash
Summary: 5 Stars
If you like to see crude men get slapped in the face as only Barbara Stanwyck can do it, this movie is the one for you. Clash By Night is a noir-ish film filled with snappy repartee. Urban girl, Mae Doyle (BS) returns to the lazy fishing village of her childhood to lick the wounds of her complicated life. She marries oaf-ish Jerry, (Paul Douglas) for the serenity and security that kind of simple life will provide. They have a child and Mae soon gets bored, her irritation complicated by the muggy, summer heat. I am of and age to remember when women went around in their one-piece white slips and men in their tank undershirts to beat the summer heat, and alot of this goes on in the movie. This is an excellent "bored woman has affair with someone far beneath her husband (Robert Ryan) drama," complete with alcoholic rantings by more than one player. Waves crash violently on the shore as we await their fates. Marilyn Monroe, sporting a modified poodle hair-do, sizzles as Mae's young sister-in-law. Paul Douglas always plays oaf as only a true non-oaf can do--and he steals the show.