Somewhere in the Night (Fox Film Noir)

Somewhere in the Night (Fox Film Noir)
by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Somewhere in the Night (Fox Film Noir)
List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $13.49
You Save: $1.49 (10%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $5.69 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases


(Click here)
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada

DVD Cover Information

Actor: John Hodiak, Josephine Hutchinson, Lloyd Nolan, Nancy Guild, Richard Conte
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
Writer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Producer: Anderson Lawler
Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Writer: Howard Dimsdale
Writer: Lee Strasberg
Writer: Marvin Borowsky
Writer: W. Somerset Maugham
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox

Movie Reviews of Somewhere in the Night (Fox Film Noir)

Movie Review: Confusing film noir copying so many others
Summary: 3 Stars

"Somewhere in the Night" is a confusing and verbose film noir, an early directorial effort by Joseph Mankiewicz. With uncharismatic John Hodiak in the lead as an amnesia victim, the film is a mishmash of confusion punctuated by some of the dumbest lines ever handed to a leading lady, starlet Nancy Guild, a Gene Tierney look alike. There are isolated good moments and some excellent supporting actors but the overall effect is tedium and disorder. This film needed stars like Bogart and Bacall and a director like Howard Hawks to pull it off! A ruthless editor would have helped too.

The print of the film is excellent and since film noir has such a cult following, the DVD gets a commentary from noir expert Eddie Mueller. Mueller is realistic about the film's weaknesses.

Summary of Somewhere in the Night (Fox Film Noir)

George Taylor returns from the WWII with amnesia. Back home in os Angeles, he tries to track down his old identity, stumbling into a 3-year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million.
"Somewhere in the Night" is an exemplary title for a film noir, and the shellshocked pilgrimage of an amnesiac WWII veteran through an L.A. shadow-zone of hotels, bars, steam baths, sanitariums, and creepy private dwellings casts an uncanny spell. The plot is so byzantine, and the interlayering of the banal with the bizarre so pervasive, we may occasionally feel we've wandered into a Raul Ruiz mindgame in the guise of a '40s mystery-melodrama. The situation is primal: a man searching for his own identity, dreading what that identity will prove to be, yet so monastically dedicated to his mission that he won't reveal his dilemma to anyone even when it might ease his quest.

The script is shot through with contradictions and improbabilities, though these loom more glaring in retrospect than during the viewing. In his sophomore directorial outing, Joseph L. Mankiewicz--who would soon evolve into a multiple-Oscar-winner (Letter to Three Wives, All About Eve)--occasionally bungles action setups that any journeyman director could have handled in mid-yawn. But he?s also written some choice dialogue and slivered some engaging business into the proceedings--especially for Lloyd Nolan as a drugstore-philosopher homicide cop, and German-Expressionist refugee Fritz Kortner (Pandora's Box), whose arias of Continental fatalism and duplicity are sheer delight. The always-assured Richard Conte is slick as an affable nightclub operator, and there are fine bits by a host of unbilled character players (Whit Bissell, Henry "Harry" Morgan, Jeff Corey, Houseley Stevenson). But Hodiak makes a charismatically challenged leading man, and a better actress than neophyte Nancy Guild ("rhymes with wild!") would have found it tough to bring off the combination of worldliness and devotion required of the nightclub chanteuse who offers him aid and comfort. --Richard T. Jameson

Drama DVD Video

DVD Video
Movies most talked about in Good Old Fashioned Noir
Darkness, Take My Hand (Patrick Kenzie/Angela Gennaro Novels) ImageDarkness, Take My Hand (Patrick Kenzie/ Angela Gennaro Novels)
by Dennis Lehane
HarperTorch; Published: 1997-07-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.65
Price in other shops: $7.99
Her Daughter In Darkness ImageHer Daughter In Darkness
by Michael Boatman
Red Rose Publishing; Red Rose Publishing; Release date: 2008-10-09; Published: 2008-10-09; Kindle Edition; eBooks
Best price: $1.59
Price in other shops: $1.99
The Little Sleep: A Novel ImageThe Little Sleep: A Novel
by Paul Tremblay
Holt Paperbacks; Published: 2009-03-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops: $14.00
Voices From The Other Side: Dark Dreams II ImageVoices From The Other Side: Dark Dreams II
Kensington; Published: 2006-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.84
Price in other shops: $15.00
BADASS HORROR ImageBADASS HORROR
by Gerard Brennan, Garry Kilworth, Michael Hemmingson, Ronald Damien Malfi, Gord Rollo, Davin Ireland, Michael Boatman
Dybbuk Press, LLC; Published: 2006-02-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.90
Price in other shops: $12.75
God Laughs When You Die ImageGod Laughs When You Die
by Michael Boatman
Dybbuk Press, LLC; Published: 2007-10-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.04
Price in other shops: $12.75
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps ImageThe Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
Vintage; Published: 2007-11-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.99
Price in other shops: $25.00
Noir: A Novel ImageNoir: A Novel
by Olivier Pauvert
Counterpoint; Published: 2008-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops: $14.95
The Dark Corner (Fox Film Noir) ImageThe Dark Corner (Fox Film Noir)
Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2005-12-06; DVD
Best price: $7.49
Price in other shops: $14.98
Zen Noir ImageZen Noir
Victory; Release date: 2006-11-14; Published: 2006; DVD
Best price: $16.24
Price in other shops: $19.95
Similar DVD Movies
House of Strangers (Fox Film Noir) ImageHouse of Strangers (Fox Film Noir)
Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2006-06-06; DVD
Best price: $7.41
Price in other shops: $14.98
Kiss of Death (Fox Film Noir) ImageKiss of Death (Fox Film Noir)
Release date: 2005-12-06; DVD
Best price: $7.61
Price in other shops: $14.98
The House on 92nd Street (Fox Film Noir) ImageThe House on 92nd Street (Fox Film Noir)
Release date: 2005-09-06; DVD
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops: $14.98
Where the Sidewalk Ends (Fox Film Noir) ImageWhere the Sidewalk Ends (Fox Film Noir)
Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2005-12-06; DVD
Best price: $7.61
Price in other shops: $14.98
The Street With No Name (Fox Film Noir) ImageThe Street With No Name (Fox Film Noir)
Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2005-06-07; DVD
Best price: $6.57
Price in other shops: $14.98
I Wake Up Screaming (Fox Film Noir) ImageI Wake Up Screaming (Fox Film Noir)
Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2006-06-06; DVD
Best price: $5.98
Price in other shops: $14.98
House on Telegraph Hill (Fox Film Noir) ImageHouse on Telegraph Hill (Fox Film Noir)
Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2006-03-07; DVD
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops: $14.98
The Dark Corner (Fox Film Noir) ImageThe Dark Corner (Fox Film Noir)
Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2005-12-06; DVD
Best price: $7.69
Price in other shops: $14.98
Fallen Angel (Fox Film Noir) ImageFallen Angel (Fox Film Noir)
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2006-03-07; DVD
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops: $14.98
Whirlpool (Fox Film Noir) ImageWhirlpool (Fox Film Noir)
Release date: 2005-09-06; DVD
Best price: $7.61
Price in other shops: $14.98
Compare prices and read customer reviews for more than one million DVD titles.
Oscar 2005 Winners