THE DEVIL STRIKES AT NIGHT d: Robert Siodmak

Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam / The Devil Strikes at Night (1957)
Direction: Robert Siodmak
Screenplay: Werner Jörg Lüddecke, from an article by Will Berthold
Cast: Claus Holm, Annemarie Düringer, Mario Adorf, Hannes Messemer, Carl Lange, Werner Peters
 

 

After more than a decade in Hollywood, German-born director Robert Siodmak (nominated for an Academy Award for The Killers in 1946) resumed his European career in the mid-1950s. In 1957, he directed Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam / The Devil Strikes at Night, an intriguing, well-crafted crime drama about the pursuit of a serial killer — and its political consequences — during the last months of the mass-murderous Nazi regime.
Inspired by real events, The Devil Strikes at Night begins as war-scarred Hamburg is deeply shaken by [...]

by Andre Soares | October 29, 2004   
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A HATFUL OF RAIN – Eva Marie Saint, Don Murray

A Hatful of Rain (1957)
Direction: Fred Zinnemann
Screenplay: Michael V. Gazzo, Alfred Hayes, Carl Foreman (originally uncredited); from Gazzo’s play
Cast: Eva Marie Saint, Don Murray, Anthony Franciosa, Lloyd Nolan, Henry Silva
 

Based on a play by Michael V. Gazzo, A Hatful of Rain is an interesting attempt at injecting "adult" subject matters — in this case, the evils of drug addiction — into Hollywood movies. "Interesting," however, does not mean either successful or compelling.
Despite real, unromantic New York locations and Joseph MacDonald’s beautifully realistic black-and-white camera work, this Fred Zinnemann-directed melodrama feels anachronistically stagy because of the overall artificiality of the dialogue and the hammy theatricality of the performances — with Eva Marie Saint as the sole naturalistic exception.
Somewhat revolutionary [...]

by Andre Soares | October 24, 2004   
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