Journey into the Night (1921) User Reviews

Not a classic but worth seeing for Conrad Veidt's out of place rehash of his role as "Cesare"

[SlothNOIR · 5/10 · 24 January 2001]

This was the first of three in a season of Murnau films that I saw at the National Film Theatre (NFT) in London (Jan 2001). It was also the first time I had seen a silent film in a cinema, the screening was enhanced by a live piano accompaniment.

According to the handout from the NFT it is the oldest of Murnau's surviving complete works. It was certainly the most unsophisticated of the three films that I saw, the other two being The Last Laugh and Nosferatu. The plot is a clumsy romantic melodrama primarily involving an eye surgeon, a dancer and a blind painter. To be honest, I thought that overall the film was a naff as it sounds. However there were a number of worthwhile moments.

Apparently Murnau was unhappy with the acting of most of the cast, and I can confirm that it was old fashioned (even for 1920) stiff and exaggerated. However, without an extensive background in silents, I did not find the performance of Olaf Fonss as the eye surgeon too distracting. The acting highlight, and an anti-reason to try to see the film, was the astounding performance of Conrad Veidt as the blind painter.

Veidt was obviously flush with the success of his performance as Cesare in `Caligari' and seems to have decided to do it again! I think his eerie performance in this film is every bit as memorable as Cesare. Murnau's use of naturalistic settings seems to enhance horrific effect through the form of understatement, as was clearly shown later in Nosferatu. Veidt slides around the film fingers first as the male romantic lead producing an aura that, for me, made it impossible to believe that Gudrun Bruun-Steffensen as Lily could possibly fall in love with him. A question mark also hangs over the abilities of the blind painter who first appears standing upright in a rowboat gliding over an inlet (that would have worked fabulously in a horror film!) and is able to disembark on to a raised jetty unassisted… without stumbling. I don't know if you've ever tried to disembark from a small boat, even with sight it's not easy. Sadly Veidt's performance, fabulous in isolation, is totally out of keeping with the film!

The other highlights of this film are when Murnau has got the cast out of the way and employed a variety of lingering scenic shots. There are many cuts to seascapes in this film and they have a compositional beauty that is almost uplifting. Murnau clearly has a skill in employing landscape and I think that all the scenic shots in all the three films that I saw worked well, succeeding in conveying as much of the essence of each film as the more overt moments.

Dark nocturnal journey

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 14 April 2021]

When it comes to silent film, FW Murnau is absolutely one of the best and most influential. His lesser work, 'The Haunted Castle' immediately comes to mind as an example, is still watchable, and his best work (such as 'Faust', 'The Last Laugh' and my personal favourite 'Sunrise') is masterpiece level. He was a gift of a director whose tragic premature death was a big loss, interesting and consistent once he found his style. His films tending to be visually stunning and full of interesting themes and atmosphere.

Which can be seen in 'Journey into the Night'. It is a watchable film and its best things are truly great. It did strike me as very uneven however and while it certainly feels more like a Murnau film than 'The Haunted Castle' did for instance, 'Journey into the Night' is really not one of the best representations of Murnau. It is another lesser effort, having seen this and 'The Burning Soil' back to back, and with a feeling that Murnau had not yet fully found his comfort zone.

'Journey into the Night' does have good things. It looks good, with gorgeously framed and quite eerie cinematography. Also standing out visually are the settings, very naturalistic and extravagant, captured by a cinematographer who clearly loved them. There are some truly gorgeous images throughout, especially in the last quarter. Murnnau's direction is spot on when it comes to the visuals and the atmosphere, which at the best of times has an eeriness and also a poignancy.

The final quarter has the passion and emotional impact that was not present enough in the rest of the film. The final intertitle is poetic and moving. Along with the production values, the best thing about 'Journey into the Night' is the mesmerising Conrad Veidt, passionate and unsettling.

It is a shame that the rest of the acting is too over the top, borderline hammy and static in character interaction, just to say that acting in silent film could be subtle (like with Dorothy and Lillian Gish) and wasn't always stagy so am going to disagree with anybody that says that that style of acting was a product of the time. The characters are not particularly well developed and are either bland or unlikeable taken to extremes, Veidt's is the only interesting one and much of it is down to Veidt's performance.

While excelling in the visuals and atmosphere, Murnau falls short when it comes to story momentum and character interaction. The character interaction is static and lacking in passion and the pacing creaks with sluggishness frequently. The story is not as slight as those for 'The Haunted Castle' and 'The Burning Soil', but it still feels meandering and over-stretched on the most part. Structurally it is agreed and even for an early silent and for this genre the melodrama is too overwrought and old-fashioned. Apart from the final one, the intertitles are too rambling.

Summing up, watchable but namely for curiosity. Murnau went on to do much better. 5/10.

Murnau's Earliest Surviving Movie

[springfieldrental · 6/10 · 15 October 2021]

F. W. Murnau's earliest surviving directed movie was released a few short months before "The Haunted Castle" in January 1921's "Journey Into The Night." Murnau was fascinated during this period of his career with storylines of infidelity and murder. In "Journey," a straight-laced recently-engaged doctor dumps his fiancee for a cabaret dancer. He and Lily, the dancer, hitch up and move to the country, meeting a blind painter, played by Conrad Veidt (known for his sinister role of Major Strasser in 1942's 'Casablanca'). The artist's blindness is cured by the doctor. But when the doctor journeys to see his distraught ex-fiancee, Lily and the painter begin an affair, soon discovered by the returning husband. Sparks then appear like fireflies in a darkened night.

"Journey of The Night" is not typical of Murnau's later films, but it contains notes of what the director will synthesize in the next year, beginning a memorable string of movies.

The walk into oblivion

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 17 June 2016]

"Der Gang in die Nacht" or "Journey Into the Night" or "The Dark Road" is a Fanish/German co-production from 1921. Murnau and Mayer are among the finest German silent filmmaking had to offer back in the day, so there is some hope attached to this project that it may turn out nicely. This also includes actor Conrad Veidt who has great screen presence as usual. Lead actress Erna Morena is (despite the name) also German, but the rest of the cast (including lead actor Olaf Fønss) are mostly Danish. Of course, I forgot to say that this is a silent black-and-white film, so all the dialogues and texts in here are written and in the version i saw it was in German language. All in all, my expectations were not fulfilled. However, this may also have to do with my general dislike for silent films. The runtime information I read here is 69 minutes, but the version i saw was considerably longer, so there are different versions, even if it may just be a difference in frames per second. Overall, I guess this little film here was underwhelming in terms of the story, but it can still be a good watch if you are a huge (German) silent film enthusiast. But everybody who does not fit this description should skip this movie or they will be as bored as I was. Thumbs down.

Early Murnau's Masterpiece

[FerdinandVonGalitzien · 8/10 · 18 September 2008]

"Der Gang In Die Nacht" is Murnau's lesser known and early surviving films, this masterpiece was was thought to be lost until, fortunately and by chance, as always happens in these cases, some years ago a copy was discovered between some boxes of negatives in the East Berlin's "Staatliches Filmarchiv" , and thanks to the Cinèmathèque Française's restoration it can be seen again.

We are faced with a really melodramatic story, full of passion, with a masterful script from Herr Carl Mayer who distills poetry in a story than runs a scarce 61 minutes of duration. Herr Carl Mayer's script and Herr Murnau's job are good examples of what it is denominated in expressionist German cinema, as "Stimmung", which refers to the atmosphere, the ambiance so easily recognized in these productions, like the perfect conjunction between the human being, his doubts, fears and everything that surrounds him and influences him. This refers to his closest settings: his house, his furniture, his belongings; as well as the great protagonist Nature with its rain, shadows, lights...

This German count have to say, that even though the copy that has survived it is not a complete one due to some missing sequence but thanks to Herr Mayer's hand written script, these sequences have been able to survive through the literature for the total enjoyment of this genius German director's master piece. The perfect combination between Herr Mayer and Herr Murnau's work produced memorable scenes in this great film work.

Let's start pointing out the arrival of the blind painter to the town: he arrives in a boat, standing in it, between the shadows, powerfully showing off his silhouette where the sky meets the sea which forms the plane suggesting a strong presence, a ghostly one. We see Lily .who is saying goodbye to her husband who's off to visit his patients, observing the painter getting close to her door and she follows him during his passage with a mix of surprise and fascination, foreshadowing the fact that the happiness reigning in the house until then will be threatened, because something has seduced Dame Lily in a subtle and irremediable way.

Equally magnificent is the scene that will establish Herr Eigil's betrayal. The doctor removes the bandages covering his face at 6 pm. Lily fears that once the painter recovers his vision, her secret love will be hard to hide. It is shown in an exceptional montage when the fatidic time approaches, the sea, which was calm until now, starts to become turbulent foretelling that the event that was thought to be a happy one, will have fatal consequences for the married couple. Herr Murnau will return to the same initial plane as when the blind painter arrived in the town, but this time with the doctor as the main character who has come from visiting his old girlfriend who is agonizing from the pain caused by the unexpected and quick break up from her former but still loved fiancée. The same threatening sensation of unexpected arrival will alert the spectator this time to know that terrible things await the doctor.

When he finally discovers his wife's deceit, the irate doctor will get away by running from the cliff where he found them, cursing his fate, and again the quiet and calm weather that the adulterous couple had before, will transform into a threatening storm. Nature is again an important character for the film, for a story that needs to explain the human frustrations, those disappointments that his characters go through the film in an earthy and archaic way.

There are inter titles in the movie that are really beautiful, full of that poetry that you can find in all of Herr Murnau's work. Let's remember anyway that the German director thought that inter titles were not necessary to tell a story because the images, by themselves, had to carry the protagonist with the seducing power to tell the stories without "explanatory subtitles". However, it is well known that during his first period, Murnau used these inter titles very often counting on them to inform in different ways his stories, affirming specially the characters' feelings, thoughts and sensations. For example, during a scene of the first visit from the doctor to the blind painter, he will be seated in his garden "looking" at a canvas; when the doctor stops next to him, he says: "a prayer for the grace of sight".

All the drama, suffering and hopes of the tormented painter stay perfectly exposed, giving much more strength to the images. The biggest drama and beauty is in the final inter title, where the painter, blind again and with his lover dead, writes a note to his friend, his former doctor, saying: "I don't blame you. Nobody is guilty. The law (God's) is above us all. But you shall not cure me again. You gave me a gift of light and I could see her. Now I come back again to my night."

And now, if you allow me, I have to leave you momentarily due to the fact that this Germanic count has to go back to his dark and Teutonic night.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

Conrad Veidt's expressive hands

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 10/10 · 14 September 2004]

This film's German title would translate as "Journey in the Night", but that "night" is metaphoric: it refers to blindness, rather than anything nocturnal. The film's most notable merits are its photography (by Max Lutze), the direction by F.W. Murnau (a bit lighter than usual from this director) and a remarkable performance by Conrad Veidt ... an actor who never fails to impress me, yet who surpasses his own high standards in this drama.

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT. The first reel of this film plays almost like a comedy. Doctor Eigil Börne is engaged to Lily, until a fateful evening when he attends the music-hall performance of Helene, a vamp who sets her cap for the wealthy and respected physician. Helene performs an erotic dance in a bizarre costume resembling a giant rosebud that conceals the entire upper half of her body. As she dances, the petals fall away to reveal the dancer within. Helene fakes an injury on stage, knowing that the doctor in the audience will come to her aid. Helene seduces the doctor while he examines her feet. (Sounds good to me.) Before long, poor Lily is left neglected. The doctor marries Helene and whisks her off to the countryside, where he opens a surgery for the local peasants.

So far, the film still has the feel of a comedy. There's a weird sequence in which Helene disguises herself as a peasant woman, then shows up at her husband's surgery ... pretending to need treatment for an injured foot, and waiting to see how long it takes for him to recognise her. Even though Murnau establishes that this "peasant" woman is really the doctor's wife in disguise, he doesn't seem to trust us to follow the action. While the doctor is examining Helene's foot, Murnau cuts to a big close-up of actress Erna Morena smirking out from within her disguise, to remind us who this woman really is.

But now, in a starkly beautiful sequence, we see a dinghy rowing toward the shore, with a tall gaunt figure standing upright between the gunwales. Even in extreme long shot, the silhouette of Conrad Veidt is unmistakable, and even from this great distance he radiates tremendous presence. Still, it makes no sense for him to stand up in the boat ... and even less sense when we learn that Veidt is playing a blind man. I assumed that Murnau told Veidt to stand up in this shot, so as to give more emphasis to the arrival of his character ... but later in the film, we see the much less dramatic form of Olaf Fønss (as Dr. Börne) standing up in the same boat.

Veidt plays a painter (apparently of landscapes; we never see his work) who has gone blind, and who has come to the famous doctor for treatment. Börne performs some unspecified surgery. Veidt recovers his eyesight, with tragic results ... and then goes blind again.

I knew that Veidt was a great actor, yet his performance in this film is a revelation. He stalks through his early scenes without a cane or a guide, yet is entirely believable as a sightless man. The scene in which his sight is restored is a tour de force. Later, the scene in which his blindness returns is another tour de force. Conrad Veidt had the most expressive hands in the history of film acting, and he uses them exquisitely here: probing sightlessly, gesticulating.

Although most of "Journey into the Night" is brilliant, there is one unnecessarily ludicrous touch at the end of the film. The very last shot is a close-up of a handwritten letter, authored by the blind artist AFTER his blindness has returned! How did he manage to write it? Murnau should have inserted a brief shot of Veidt's blind artist dictating this letter to another person, and then shown us this amanuensis writing down Veidt's words. Despite a few minor flaws, I'll rate "Journey in the Night" a full 10 out of 10. It's a splendid example of Murnau's skills, and one of Conrad Veidt's most electrifying performances.