Night People (1954 film)
| Night People | |
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1954 British movie poster
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| Directed by | Nunnally Johnson |
| Produced by | Nunnally Johnson |
| Written by | Nunnally Johnson Jed Harris (story) Tom Reed W.R. Burnett (uncredited) |
| Starring |
Gregory Peck Broderick Crawford Anita Björk Rita Gam Walter Abel Buddy Ebsen |
| Music by | Cyril J. Mockridge |
| Cinematography | Charles G. Clarke |
| Edited by | Dorothy Spencer |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
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Release date
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Running time
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93 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,250,000 |
| Box office | $2,150,000 (US rentals) |
Night People is a 1954 motion picture drama starring Gregory Peck, Broderick Crawford, Anita Bjork, and Buddy Ebsen, directed by Nunnally Johnson. It was co-written by Jed Harris, a noted theatrical producer.
The story is set in Berlin during the years following World War II. Peck plays a Military Police colonel of the United States Army.
Allied enemies kidnap Corporal John "Johnny" Leatherby, a young American soldier in West Berlin. Lt. Col. Steve Van Dyke, the American provost marshal assigned to investigate, learns through his East German contact Frau "Hoffy" Hoffmeir that the soldier has been kidnapped by East German agents who want to trade him for a pair of elderly Germans. At the same time, the Soviet Union has closed border posts into Berlin, suggesting an impending international crisis. Johnny's father, Charles Leatherby, is a wealthy and politically influential industrialist from Toledo, Ohio, and flies to Berlin to bully the military bureaucracy into finding his son. Accustomed to being in charge and never refused, he issues a demand that the military attempt to bribe the East German government using Leatherby's money. Van Dyke is offended by Leatherby's arrogance and ignorance. ("You're a big wheel in the axle grease business. You're a personal friend of Senator...McDinglehoffer," he scoffs.)
They go to dinner at the Katacombe restaurant, ostensibly to discuss the proposed swap, accompanied by Van Dyke's assistant, M/Sgt. Eddie McCulloch. In actuality, Van Dyke wants Leatherby to see the cost of the trade: the elderly female piano player and her blind husband (his eyes gouged out by the Nazis during the war) demanded for Johnny's return. When the Americans move to detain them for forged identity papers, the couple attempts suicide by using strychnine. Van Dyke has them taken to a U.S. military hospital under the care of Major Foster, the cigarette-mooching doctor in charge. The husband is near death. The wife is in better shape and conscious, and Eddie discovers in interrogating her that she is actually English and demanding to talk to someone in British Intelligence. Van Dyke recognizes that he could be in legal jeopardy if the British determine he is using one of their citizens as a player in a "swap shop." The woman identifies herself as Rachel Cameron, wife of Gen. Gerd von Kratzenow, an anti-Nazi conspirator, and reveals that the people wanting them are not Russians but former Nazis working now with the communists.
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Wikipedia