While Bel Geddes appeared in several fine films, such as Panic in the Streets and Vertigo , her career in Hollywood as a leading actress never really took off. Here, in her debut performance, Bel Geddes needs to inspire Joe's obsessive attraction, but she's too bland to inspire much of anything. To help compensate for the lack of fire between Fonda and Bel Geddes, Dimitri Timokin's score swells during the dialogue sequences between Joe and Joanne. But this tactic quickly becomes a major irritant as it destroys the movie's quiet atmosphere. Sol Polito captures some magnificent images as he recreates the ambiance of a Pennsylvania industrial town, but The Long Night feels all too planned and storyboarded.
Nothing happens spontaneously.
Everything is meticulously designed, and while the results are visually rich, the results are also artificial. Part of the problem is simply the limitations on Hollywood films during this era. When Jean Gabin kidnaps a doll from his girlfriend's bedroom, we laugh at him for this modest form of sexual blackmail. But when Henry Fonda steals a doll from Bel Geddes' room, he looks like a nutcase. Director Budd Boetticher is mostly known for a magnificent series of Westerns he made in the late '50s and early '60s with Randolph Scott and producer Harry Joe Brown.