Few actresses jump from a thespic nowhere into a star role. You might count them on the fingers of one hand. But it happened to Nancy Guild. Signed to a Fox contract when casting director, Rufus Le Maire, spotted her picture in a 1946 Life magazine lay-out of current college girl dress fashions, Nancy jumped straight from Fox's dramatic school (where she spent "a few months as the star pupil") to the lead feminine role in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Somewhere in the Night (1946). And she does well too. Extremely well by a rather difficult role. Is she a good girl, or one of the villains? Nancy plays it cool, which is a perfect choice, especially when surrounded by consummate scene-stealers like Richard Conte, Lloyd Nolan, John Hodiak and Fritz Kortner. But her debut proved to be the high point of her motion picture career. Next cast in a Fox "B", The Brasher Doubloon (1947) opposite George Montgomery's Philip Marlowe, she followed with a minor Dan Dailey 1948 musical, Give My Regards to Broadway. Fox then dropped her. At this stage, Orson Welles came to her rescue by offering her the part of Marie Antoinette in Black Magic (1949) in which Gregory Ratoff fronted for him as producer and director. (Ratoff actually did direct half the movie, but Welles handled all his own scenes and wrote some of his own dialogue). Although this United Artists release was anything but a success, Universal offered Miss Guild a contract. She played the main feminine role in Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) and was then third-billed (Mark Stevens and Rhonda Fleming were the stars featured on all the posters) in Little Egypt (1951). Fourth billing in Francis Covers the Big Town (1953) and a minor role in Otto Preminger's 1971 Such Good Friends completed her motion picture career. Eight film roles, only one of which (her first) is of any importance. What a waste!
Getting back to the rivetingly noir, Somewhere in the Night, this movie is not just an actor's heyday (which it is – you'll probably miss the clever way one of the players signals the plot to the audience in the first 15 minutes, so watch for it on a second view), but a photographer's and set designer's paradise as well. Mankiewicz keeps a firm control of both acting and atmosphere. This exceedingly well-produced movie always enjoyed a considerable cult reputation, which, for once, was thoroughly deserved. Full marks for a really solid script on which none other than leading novelist W. Somerset Maugham worked with Lee Strasberg (later to gain fame with his Actors Studio).
Getting back to the rivetingly noir, Somewhere in the Night, this movie is not just an actor's heyday (which it is – you'll probably miss the clever way one of the players signals the plot to the audience in the first 15 minutes, so watch for it on a second view), but a photographer's and set designer's paradise as well. Mankiewicz keeps a firm control of both acting and atmosphere. This exceedingly well-produced movie always enjoyed a considerable cult reputation, which, for once, was thoroughly deserved. Full marks for a really solid script on which none other than leading novelist W. Somerset Maugham worked with Lee Strasberg (later to gain fame with his Actors Studio).