Fear in the Night

Plot synopsis:
Bank teller Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelley) dreams that he stabs a man in an octagonal room of mirrors and locks the body in a closet. When he wakes up, he discovers marks on his throat, a strange key and a button in his pocket, and blood on his cuff. Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly), his police officer brother-in-law, tries to convince him it was just a dream.
A few days later, while trying to find cover from the rain, the pair finds themselves taking shelter in the strange house from Vince's dream. They discover that the police found two bodies in the house, one in the mirrored room and one run over in the driveway. Mrs. Belknap, who was run over by a car, gave the police a description matching Vince before she died.
At first Vince is hopeful that he is innocent because he does not know how to drive, but he recognizes the victims from his dream. Overcome with remorse, he attempts suicide, but is rescued by Cliff. The detective uncovers clues that point to an evil hypnotist (Robert Emmett Keane) manipulating Vince. They realize that the hypnotist is actually Mr. Belknap in disguise and try to trap him by pretending that Vince wants hush money.
Belknap puts Vince under hypnosis and tries to get him to drown himself. Cliff rescues him from the lake and Mr. Belknap is killed in a car accident as he is trying to evade the police. It is implied that Vince will be acquitted of all charges since he killed the man in the mirrored room in self-defense.

Tags: revenge, cult

Review:
Robinson "Fear in the Night" is a neat little thriller about a man who has a nightmare that seems too real and turns out to be more then just a figment of his imagination.Waking up in a cold sweat one morning at his room at the Commodore Hotel bank teller Vince Grayson, Deforest Kelly, realized that he has thumb marks, like he was being strangled, an his throat and blood on his hand as well as a strange key and a button in his coat pocket that was in his nightmare.
Eerie mystifying and frightening film about an innocent man who thinks that he murdered someone only to find out later that he was used by the real killer Lewis Belknap/Harry Byrd, Robert Emmett Keane.
Deforest Kelly, Vince Grayson, is the poor and innocent dupe who doesn't have a clue to what he did and how he did it and that confusion almost drives him to kill himself.
Cliff Herlihy,Paul Kelly, is very effective as Vince's brother-in-law as well as police detective.
Cornell Woolrich, the brilliant crime and mystery writer, got his facts right when he wrote the story on which this film and its later remake, 'Nightmare' with Edward G.
The lead character of Vince is brilliantly played by DeForest Kelley, who later became famous in 'Star Trek' and here is seen in his feature film debut (a previous Navy film not counted).
But the special effects, dream sequences, and just plain surreal imagery are all worth the look.There are a couple of deep flaws in the plot--like a group of four people drive up to a house they've never been to and because it's raining they go inside and make tea and take a nap.
But you know how a low budget can inspire makeshift solutions--here we have room of mirrors, some hypnosis, a murder that the murderer can't remember, crazy dreams, and a brother-in-law who is a tough detective.
Direction and other performances are unremarkable, though a little bit of stylistic cinematography in the flashbacks isn't bad.NIGHTMARE was the slicker remake which came about nine years later with Edward G.
Robinson, Kevin McCarthy, and slightly more money, but I would suggest that this earlier version has more suspense and rooting interest (Kelley is far more sympathetic than McCarthy.) More importantly, the flimsy plot holds together better in FEAR IN THE NIGHT, omitting the poorly motivated Edward G.
This is far from a great movie; it's not even really a good noir, but Kelley's rare lead performance is fascinating and he makes us care about what happens.
DeForrest Kelley has "Fear in the Night" in this 1947 low-budget B film, also starring Paul Kelly and Ann Doran.
Kelley plays Vince Grayson, who has a vivid dream that he has committed murder.
He tells his cop brother-in-law Cliff about the dream, but Cliff brushes it off as just that, a dream.Later on, Vince goes on a picnic with his sister Lil (Ann Doran) and husband Cliff.
When the rain starts coming down in buckets, they jump in the car and Vince directs them to a house, which turns out to be the murder house, down to the octagonal mirrored room that Vince described to Cliff.
Cliff now believes that Vince committed murder and lied when he described the dream.Very good story that makes use of hypnosis as part of the plot.
The shots of old LA are wonderful - sometimes when films are done cheaply there is city shooting and use of the city in process shots, which always adds authenticity to the movie.When I showed my sister one of the screen shots and announced it was DeForrest Kelley, I thought her eyes would bug out of her head.
Faring better is Kelly as his brother-in-law, a cop who is skeptical of Kelley's claim that it was all a dream.
Fear in the Night is directed by Maxwell Shane who also adapts from Cornell Woolrich's (AKA: William Irish) story titled Nightmare.
It stars Paul Kelly, DeForest Kelley, Ann Doran, Kay Scott & Robert Emmett Keane.
Plot finds bank teller Vince Grayson (Kelley) awoken from a nightmare where he kills a man in a mirrored room.
After confiding about the events to his brother-in-law, detective Cliff Herlihy (Kelly), it's presumed he's under stress and a good day out with the girls will do him wonders.
Kelly (Crossfire) is good value, making a believable copper, while Keane is wonderfully sedate and creepy (check out the candle sequence).True enough there's problems that stop it being a B noir classic, such as the back screen shots and the afore mentioned less than stellar acting.
But considering the budget and time of its making, it's an admirable film that's easily recommended to noir and murder mystery fans.
to the house in which he dreamt the murderer.It's a film noir from a story by Cornell Woolrich, so you know up front that it's going to be overwrought.
It seems that the writer and director Maxwell Shayne or maybe Cornell Woolrich's great sense of storytelling that made the mood evenly wrought."Fear In the Night" is a fine, interesting, suspenseful movie that I recommend not as a masterpiece but as a very fine example of a good idea very well made.
Fear in the Night is about a man (Vince) who has a terrible nightmare in which, he kills a man in a strange mirrored room.When he wakes up he discovers that he has blood on his wrist on bruises on his neck just like in his dream.
In a panic Vince enlists the aid of his brother in law Cliff and the two of them try to figure out what happened before Vince is arrested for murder.You can tell right away that this was made on a modest budget and some of the acting is pretty atrocious but, it's an interesting crime drama and was an enjoyable watch.This movie was re-made with the same director in 1956 with Edward G.
This time it was called Nightmare.This is the feature film debut of DeForest Kelley who later went on to play "Bones" on Star Trek..
Bank teller Vince Grayson wakes from a nightmare in which he and an unknown woman murdered a man in a strange, mirrored room.
Only a dream...but Vince finds that he has physical objects and bruises from his "dream." His cop brother-in-law dismisses his story...until the family, on a picnic, takes shelter from a thunderstorm in a deserted mansion containing that mirrored room.
Not every screen version of a Cornell Woolrich (aka William Irish) yarn is another "Rear Window" or "Phantom Lady." In the wrong hands, you're liable to end up with "Fear in the Night," a flimsy low-budget adaptation of a short story that deserved better.
It's a dream sequence from which Deforest Kelley (Vince) then wakes from and has to work out what the hell has just happened.
Paul Kelly (Cliff) is there to help him work things out.Deforest Kelley is Dr Leonard McCoy aka Bones from Star Trek.
Worth watching if you like these types of films.Vince Grayson (Kelly) is a young man who is easily hypnotized and he's had a horrible nightmare that he murdered someone and a mirrored room but it seemed all to real to him.
"It was dream, no it's real" - he kept debating himself, yet he knew it had to be real so he enlisted the help of his detective brother-in-law Cliff to find out the answers.The questions are: Did Vince really kill someone?
In fact the only difference I could tell is that in Fear In The Night protagonist DeForest Kelley is a bank teller whereas Kevin McCarthy in the remake is a jazz musician.
But on a Sunday drive with his brother-in-law Paul Kelly and sister Ann Doran, Kelley leads them to a house and shows enough to his brother-in-law to know that something happened.
"Fear In the Night" is worth your time.The gals are good - what little they have to do.It is fascinating to watch DeForest Kelley when he was just getting started.
Bank teller Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelly) wakes from a murderous nightmare that seems all too real with concrete evidence that it may well be true.
He turns to his brother in law Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly) for help but even he has his suspicions.With it's intriguing nebulous opening Fear in the Night makes a decent effort at working noir tropes that evoke The Lady from Shanghai, DOA as well as masque the case building against Grayson well into the story.
Even Grayson begins to believe he may be guilty and attempts suicide.As the confused Grayson, DeForest Kelly is an everyday benign working slob that in most circumstances seems harmless but director Max Shane saddles him with damning doubt early and Shane plays the character and the evidence to sustain suspense well into the film.
This structure is probably more explicit here than in any other noir film, including Lang's: the film starts with the narrator having a nightmare where he kills a woman in a mysterious octagonal room with mirrors, but when he wakes up in his room he finds traces of the murder.
The plot is that a normal guy who works in a bank has this dream where he murders a man in a small mirrored room while a woman looks on.
Once we get through this scene there is a little bit of background but mostly we stay in the feverish panic stage as Vince "remembers" stuff he can't possibly know, thus making the whole film essentially one of build as he realizes that, somehow, he really was where his dream had him.
This little film noir starts very well with a guy dreaming he committed a murder and waking up to find he has an object he had in the dream.
This interesting film explores whether one can be hypnotized against his will and compelled to perform hideous acts contrary to his nature, even to the point of killing and self-destruction.Mild mannered bank teller Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelley in his film debut) lives in a seedy hotel room and can't even drive a car.
Deeply disturbed, Vince cannot report to work and wanders the city pondering the mystery of this frightening experience.Along the way, Vince receives support from his sister Lil Herlihy (Ann Doran) and her husband Cliff (strongly played by Paul Kelly).
A stream of interrelated events ultimately leads Vince back to the mystery house with the mirrored room.Vince's inability to drive a car, a rather dated concept, clears him as a suspect in one murder.
Kelley tries hard to make Vince's character convincing, but this is 20 years before we know him as the feisty Dr. Leonard (Bones) McCoy aboard the Starship Enterprise.Unlike some Noir efforts, the story is straight forward and simply allows the mystery to explain itself, a credit to Maxwell Shane's direction.
He goes to his brother-in-law, Detective Cliff Herlihy, who is at first skeptical but then, in an odd sequence of events - a picnic interrupted by rain, finding a house in the woods, a room upstairs with octagonal mirrors etc - he not only believes Vince guilty but also that he is a cold blooded murderer hiding his crime behind a weak, nervous personality.How Cliff comes to believe Vince and, with the aid of hypnosis, solves the mystery is riveting stuff.
Maxwell Shane was usually their director.DeForest Kelley plays Vince in one of his first films.
Was there ever a more dependable actor than Paul Kelly (he played Cliff) -from the silent days to the golden years of television in the 50s, you always knew you were going to enjoy his work.
Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelly), a pleasant, unexceptional young bank teller, wakes up one morning after a horrendous nightmare.
He makes his way to his sister's house to talk with her husband, Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly), a police detective.
But the story here is much more of a straightforward psychological mystery.Kelly plays Vince Grayson, a bank teller who dreams of a murder that turns out to be real -- and in the dream, he is the murderer!
He confesses about the dream to his cop brother-in-law (Paul Kelly), and then we're supposed to believe that randomly while out on a picnic with Kelly and the girls (Ann Doran and Kay Scott) he comes across the same house where the murder took place.
From there on out, Kelly's character proves his integrity and loyalty by helping his friend and relative find the real villain.It's an interesting film in that it uses this image of the room of mirrors, a kind of metaphor for the human mind.
"City Across the River" writer & director Maxwell Shane has crafted a hypnotic little film noir crime thriller based on a story by celebrated "Rear Window" author Cornell Woolrich.
Our sympathetic protagonist, Vince Grayson (Deforest Kelly of "The Law and Jake Wade"), dreams he is in an octagonal room paneled with eight mirrors.
Stricken with a guilty conscience, Vince visits his brother-in-law, Los Angeles Police Detective Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly of "Springfield Rifle"), who is sanding a miniature version of Martha Washington's bed.
This film begins with a young DeForrest Kelley having some sort of dream-like terror.
It's a real shame it's a rather unknown film, as I really had a great time watching it.This is the first film of DeForrest Kelley and he was fortunate to have Paul Kelly as his co-star.
He guest starred in many T.V. Westerns of the 1950's and 60's, but to see him actually playing the lead in the 1947 noir film "Fear in the Night" was a veritable treat.Kelley's character is Vince Grayson, a rather meek bank clerk who has a dream that he kills someone.
As circumstances suggest that he actually might have done it, he confides in brother in law Cliff (Paul Kelly), a police detective who at first dismisses Grayson's ramblings, and then begins an investigation when a rain shortened day trip brings them to the scene of the crime.
I got a kick out of a goofy conversation on an elevator when DeForest Kelley's character asks if it can go any faster; the operator's response - "I've got it wide open"!Long story short - Vince Grayson DID kill someone, but he was hypnotized into doing so.
It even has keywords "fear" and "night" in the title.But man does this film draaaaag.Vince Greyson (DeForest Kelley) is a bank teller who wakes up to the gradual realization that he just killed someone.
Enlisting the help of police detective Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly) who happens to be his brother in law, Greyson discovers what it is to have "an honest man's conscience...
Like why does he get the bright idea of sending his shaky brother- in-law into a dangerous situation without police backup?When Greyson tells his story, Herlihy's first response is to wave it off: "You've just been stretching your nerves thin, kid." Then, after Greyson takes him to the house where it happened, Herlihy transforms into Dirty Harry, slapping the poor kid around and calling him "lower than the lowest rat we ever brought in for knifing someone in an alley." I give Kelly credit for making his about-face play at all, but it leaves a weird aftertaste.I don't hate this movie; the visual dynamics are strong throughout.
Writer-director Maxwell Shane remade the film in 1956 as Nightmare starring Kevin McCarthy as the impressionable young man and Edward G.
Robinson as his strong-willed brother-in-law.This was Kelley's feature film debut.
Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelley), a young man has a terrible nightmare in which he sees himself killing someone.
Calling in sick, he goes to see his brother-in-law Detective Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly) and asks for help.
When it happens that on an afternoon picnic Vince and his girlfriend Betty Winters (Kay Scott) and Cliff and his wife Lil (Ann Doran) discover the remote mansion from Vince's nightmare, and stumble upon a mirrored room just like the one in Vince's dream, Cliff confronts Vince accusing him of murder.
Jack Greenhalgh's moody lensing helps create a mysterious menacing mood, and yes the film says that it was a low-budget production with its set pieces and rear projection, but within that bracketing and its economical time, it still delivers a great slice of film noir with not too much cheese.Under Maxwell Shane's direction, the actors drive the plot, and create a causal dynamic that convinces the viewer that these characters are real: DeForest Kelley's Vince is convincing if a little too sensitive as a hypnotized bank clerk.
Kelley is convincingly overwrought; already showing some of the mannerisms that he would become famous for on Star Trek in the 60s.Maxwell Shane's direction perfectly compliments the writing, and allows the film to function well as a noir action feature.
From the moment its young hero (DeForrest Kelley, far from his days as "Dr. McCoy" of "Star Trek") wakes up sweating after a night of terror dreaming of murder in a closet with mirrors, waking up to find a strange key and blood on his wrist, as well as other clues that make his nightmare seem so real, you are gripped.
Kelly, an underrated stage actor who played both heavies and good guys on the screen, is excellent, his frustration building into anger here as he discovers his brother-in-law's claims may not be so far fetched after all, and when he accuses him of making the whole dream up, the jig seems to be up.
Film Noir based on a short story "Nightmare" by Cornell Woolrich.
Vince Grayson(DeForest Kelley)is a bank teller that has a nightmare where he kills a stranger.
He asks his brother-in-law Cliff(Paul Kelly), who happens to be a detective, to help him make sense of his horrible dream.
After Vince is drawn to a mansion, he realizes it has the mirrored room in which he killed the man in his dream.
The story remains powerful/gripping and if DeForest Kelly in his screen debut is not quite up to the lead veteran Paul Kelly more than compensates in the role of the brother-in-law cop later played by Eddie Robinson.