Nightmare (1956)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Copyright 1956 by Pine-Thomas-Shane Productions. Released through United Artists. New York opening at the Palace: 11 May 1956. U.S. release: June 1956. U.K. release: 4 June 1956. Australian release: 18 January 1957. Sydney opening at the Palace (ran 2 weeks). 89 minutes. Cut to 80 minutes in Australia.SYNOPSIS: New Orleans jazz musician Stan Grayson dreams that he stabs a man to death in a mirrored room and wakes to find scratches, bruises, and other indications that it was not a dream. He relates the incident to his brother-in-law, police detective René Bressard, who assures him it was a dream. The thought that he may be a killer haunts him, as does a strange, exotic tune that runs through his mind. He prowls the jazz bars on Bourbon Street, hoping to find someone who is familiar with the song but with no success. Hoping to cure Stan's melancholia, René invites him to picnic with his sister and girl friend, Gina. A sudden rainstorm forces them into the car, but its windshield wipers are broken and, in an effort to find shelter, Stan directs them to a large, empty mansion, which is the house in his dream.COMMENT: Maxwell Shane's own remake of his Fear in the Night (1947) is still a modestly budgeted affair, though it benefits from Biroc's glossy lighting and a bit of location shooting, plus of course its much stronger cast line-up. In fact, Robinson's performance is only a shade less than his usual punch and Connie Russell (who has two songs) is one of the most attractive heroines we have come across in years. Marian Carr is also effective in her single sequence as a bar pick-up.But the film suffers from padding. We don't mind the songs, but the efforts to build up Robinson's part (which is actually a secondary one) and the attenuation of some of hero Kevin McCarthy's scenes and the footage with the hero's sister make for rather wearisome viewing. Still Gage Clarke has his moments and the story is moderately suspenseful.The direction for the most part is routine though there are one or two glimpses of talent, but the nightmare sequence itself is disappointingly pedestrian.

Yes, this was originally made in the 1940's and one of the cast was none other than Deforest Kelly of Fear In The Night. After doing this one, Dr. McCoy moved on out of this remake. Edward G. Robinson replaces Paul Kelly as top billing and Kevin MCCarthy replaces Dr. McCoy. This one features more music as there is an orchestra on hand.It is solid as Stan thinks he is dreaming he killed someone he actually did kill. While a bit thread bare as a plot, it does work. There is always so much doubt when a dream killer turns out to be a real killer.Robinson and McCarthy are in top form here and definitely play off each other well. Being a film noir, this one keeps the real murderer loose until the end of the movie. The ending is a song, maybe a swan song though this one did get remade again on a 2012 television program.If you like noir, it would be benefit to see both earlier films. It would satisfy your urge for this type of film for a while. This one is pretty good.

Cornell Woolrich was the source of many scripts from the time he was writing in the thirties (in the last century) up until now. His books themselves are hopelessly outdated in writing style, overwritten and florid - but the plots - he was a veritable Agatha Christie when it came to cooking up noir twists and turns. One of my favorites was his novella Nightmare, here (forgive me) hypnotically brought to the screen with moody settings, bayous drenched in rain, mirrored rooms, seedy hotel rooms in New Orleans, a weird strangulated score based on the songs in the movie and great performances by ALL involved, a suspicious Edward G. Robinson who's a hard boiled cop reprising his performance in Double Indemnity with his wife's brother Kevin McCarthy as the foil instead of Fred McMurray. Only in this picture McCarthy is innocent. McCarthy, hitting his stride in, in my opinion, the best sci-fi thriller of all time, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. did NIGHTMARE the same year and brings believability to his role as the skittish and floundering jazz musician living in a New Orleans seedy hotel while drifting through the Bourbon Street Bar scene. In one scene he picks up a prostitute (which you feel he's done before as their bar banter is done with the greatest of ease.) Even though, of course, he has a girlfriend, and only freaks and bolts from her apartment when, in a weird shot in the mirror, the prostitute reminds him of the woman in the mirrored room of his nightmare...in which he feels he's killed someone and though there's no proof, can't get it out of his mind. Turns out McCarthy was hypnotized into believing he killed someone and why not? The plot's half noir and half giallo anyway. What is the secret of the mirrored room? Does it exist? Of course. And the murder was all very real and executed with great aplomb by the extremely creepy Gage Clarke who in a dual role moves into McCarthy's seedy hotel as presumably just another transient but in a bizarre and disquieting scene actually comes into McCarthy's room with a candle and hypnotizes him further to keep him under his control. You have to check this villain's voice out and his hypnotic structured repetitions for a real spooked out treat. McCarthy is excellent - paranoid and losing it. His girlfriend Connie Russell is the penultimate pin-up babe of the fifties, going the length for 'her man' while decked out in tight sweaters and singing some low down numbers live and in the studio, such as 'It was the last I ever saw of that man' and ' What's Your Sad Story, it can't be sadder than mine' Virginia Christine, Mrs. Olson 'It's Mountain Grown', fresh from co-starring with McCarthy in INVASION, doesn't disappoint here and rounds out a great cast as the pregnant wife of Edward G. Robinson. Pretty much a controlling hysteric type, she goes bananas during thunderstorms with great aplomb! Maxwell Shane directed this material before in FEAR IN THE NIGHT which is fairly unremarkable with a few good moments. But NIGHTMARE is great! The plot is not at all dated and has no holes but is neatly devised and carried out. In the end everything makes sense. I think this movie is vastly underrated and a strange and strong entry in the noir canon. There's something haunting about it you can't shake off.

Can't agree with the hypesters preceding me who have largely gushed over this one. I found McCarthy curiously hammy and over the top, as if he played the climactic "they're here! they're here!" scene from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS start to finish in this film. The great Edward G. Robinson seems lost and hazy as the initially dubious but finally accepting cop who ultimately bails out McCarthy. Much of the hypnotism exploitation angle is hopelessly out of date and plays to unintended laughs with the "focus on the watch" chestnut dusted off by the killer on an unwary McCarthy near the end. Police procedure has rarely been as blatantly ignored as when the cop discovers Robinson and murder suspect McCarthy breaking and entering inside the murder house with a totally ridiculous story but within a minute or two not only lets them go but vows to help them when he should be calling for backup and trying to throw a butterfly net over them. Brainiac detectiving by a top cop!On the plus side, the musical score is creepily woven into the story and the climax in the mirrored room and down by the swamp in the dark does have some goth atmosphere and mood going for it. McCarthy's goodgirl girlfriend is appealing and sympathetic. Unfortunately, there are just too many contrivances in the murder by hypnotism angle and the whole pooling of Robinson and McCarthy's resources comes off as half baked at best. Certainly this is an interesting curio for the cast and the Woolrich source material but it's lesser noir and ultimately more like a weak second feature.