The Long Night (1947 film)
| The Long Night | |
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theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Anatole Litvak |
| Produced by | Anatole Litvak Raymond Hakim Robert Hakim |
| Screenplay by | Jacques Viot John Wexley |
| Based on | the screenplay of Le Jour Se Lève by Jacques Prévert Jacques Viot |
| Starring |
Henry Fonda Barbara Bel Geddes Vincent Price Ann Dvorak |
| Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
| Cinematography | Sol Polito |
| Edited by | Robert Swink |
| Distributed by | RKO Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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101 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Long Night is a 1947 American film noir directed by Anatole Litvak and produced by RKO. It is a remake of Le Jour Se Lève (1939) by Marcel Carné. The drama stars Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes, Vincent Price and Ann Dvorak. The title of the original French film is an idiom which translates roughly as "dawn is breaking".
The Long Night was the first screen appearance by character actress Barbara Bel Geddes and it served as a springboard for Bel Geddes's career. RKO signed Bel Geddes to a seven-year contract.
A dead man tumbles down a flight of stairs. When the police arrive at the top-floor apartment of Joe Adams (Henry Fonda), he shoots at them through the door.
The sheriff calls in reinforcements and sets up snipers on nearby rooftops. Adams, in his room, begins a recollection of the events leading up to this, beginning with his first chance encounter with Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes), who works in a flower shop. It turns out they had been raised in the same orphanage.
The story unfolds in a series of flashbacks, and even a flashback within a flashback, as Joe recalls what Jo Ann told him about her life before they met.
Finding her behavior suspicious, he follows her to a nightclub where Maximilian the Great (Vincent Price)is performing a magic act on stage. At the bar, Joe gets to know Charlene (Ann Dvorak), who recently quit as Max's assistant.
Max claims to be Jo Ann's long-lost father. She was picked out of the audience one night by Charlene and brought on stage to take part in the act, then continued a relationship. Jo Ann fiercely denies to Joe, however, that Max is related to her. In fact, she insists that she had to physically fend off Max's romantic advances to her.
The two women have feelings for Joe but leave him mystified, particularly when both appear to have received exactly the same brooch from Max as a gift. Jo Ann naively believes that hers is a rare antique that once belonged to Montezuma's daughter. The more worldly-wise Charlene suggests she believed Max's line at first too, but she now has a whole display card of them marked at a price of 85 cents each. He is not sure whom to trust, and when Max comes to his apartment to kill him, Joe shoots first, sending Max falling to his death.
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