Nightmare (1942)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Tim Whelan

Writers:

Philip MacDonald (novel)
Dwight Taylor (writer)

Release Date:

13 November 1942 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery

Plot:

An ex-gambler helps a beautiful widow, and becomes involved with a murder, secret agents, and saboteurs. |

Plot Keywords:

Spy | Based On Novel

Cast

Diana Barrymore	...	Leslie Stafford
Brian Donlevy	...	Daniel Shane
Henry Daniell	...	Capt. Stafford
Eustace Wyatt	...	Angus
Arthur Shields	...	Sergeant
Gavin Muir	...	Abbington
Stanley Logan	...	Inspector Robbins
Ian Wolfe	...	Abbington's Butler
Hans Conried	...	Hans
John Abbott	...	Karl
David Clyde	...	Jock
Elspeth Dudgeon	...	Angus' Wife
Harold De Becker	...	London Cabby
Ivan F. Simpson	...	Money Changer
Keith Hitchcock	...	London Bobby

Runtime:

81 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Universal Pictures

Excellent espionage thriller with fascinating leading lady

This is a splendid early wartime thriller, with the wonderful plot twist that a corpse with a knife in his back is found and disposed of, but then reappears the next day in the same place with another knife in his back. A Nazi spy code-named SI-10 turns out to be identical with the license plate of his Lagonda, in which a secret microphone/speaker is disguised as a dashboard cigarette lighter. This is the only film ever produced by Dwight Taylor, the well known screenwriter who also scripted this. The main appeal of this film however is the powerful presence of the intensely disturbed Diana Barrymore, who combines womanly charm and fascination with a violent streak so terrifying and uncontrollable that it has rarely been encountered so unequivocally on screen. So powerful is this unsettling violence in her nature, that her tragic life story and suicide all too amply confirm that it was not just acting. As an actress, she was a natural. What a pity that she was so self-destructively mixed up, since a major talent was lost to the screen. She could have been the greatest Barrymore of them all if she could have held herself together. Brian Donlevy does very well as the whimsical American who gets mixed up in this story because he has been 'bombed-out' in the London Blitz while dressed in his dinner jacket. There are no gag lines in this script. It is a dark and brooding work, made darker by the London Blackout of course. There are many highly tense moments, and this thriller really works.