Night Editor (1946)

"Night Editor" was based on the already existing radio program in which a newspaper editor would recount the 'inside story' of some bit newspaper story, and later became a television series... See full summary »

Director:

Henry Levin

Writers:

Scott Littleton (story), Harold Jacob Smith (screenplay),

Stars:

William Gargan, Janis Carter, Jeff Donnell

Cast

Cast overview:
William Gargan	...	Tony Cochrane
Janis Carter	...	Jill Merrill
Jeff Donnell	...	Martha Cochrane
Coulter Irwin	...	Johnny
Charles D. Brown	...	Crane Stewart
Paul E. Burns	...	Ole Strom
Harry Shannon	...	Capt. Lawrence
Frank Wilcox	...	Douglas Loring
Robert Kellard	...	'Doc' Cochrane (as Robert Stevens)

Storyline

"Night Editor" was based on the already existing radio program in which a newspaper editor would recount the 'inside story' of some bit newspaper story, and later became a television series: This time, a night editor of a newspaper is telling a story to a young reporter, who is neglecting his job and wife and beginning to drink too much. The story begins as a police detective, although devoted to his wife and young son, has entered into an affair with a society girl, also married, and while they are parked out in the boonies on a lonely road, they witness a murder. The detective, because of the circumstances of being where he is for the reason he is there, does not attempt to catch the killer and does not report the crime. He is later assigned the case and soon realizes that an innocent man is about to take the blame, and the only way he can clear him is to arrest the killer and become a witness against him. The story-teller also has a vested interest in the old case.

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Plot Keywords:

witness | detective | reporter | newspaper editor | affair | 

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Taglines:

In the middle of a kiss...Murder!

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Genres:

Crime | Film-Noir | Drama

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 March 1946 (USA)

Also Known As:

Il veleno del peccato

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

68 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

Though majority of movie is a prolonged flashback set in the early Thirties, absolutely nothing (with exception of vintage cars) - hairstyles, wardrobe, music, decor - would have seemed out of place in a contemporary story set in mid-Forties.

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Quotes

Jill Merrill: I don't need you, I can buy and sell you.I don't know why I bother seeing you.
Tony Cochrane: You don't know why? I'll tell you. You're rotten through and through.Like something they serve at the Ritz,only its been laying out in the sun too long.
Jill Merrill: That's right, Tony, you're not my kind. The clean cut type.Little tootsie-wootsie loves her great big stupid peasant.
Tony Cochrane: Yeah, for all your dough, like a ton of bricks!
Jill Merrill: How picturesque. And you were totally unresponsive?
Tony Cochrane: You're like a sickness. I was sick!
Jill Merrill: No, Tony it ...
[...]

User Reviews

Wicked woman Janis Carter supplies oomph for gritty little noir

Night Editor was the proposed "pilot" for a series of B-movie programmers introduced by a bunch of graveyard-shift reporters working the police beat. The series came to naught, but this maiden effort bears watching. William Gargan is a basically decent married detective on the force who has been getting a little action on the side with rich dame Janis Carter, a haut-40s glamourpuss in the Claire Trevor/Helen Walker/Audrey Totter mold whose few performances leave us wondering why her career wasn't a lot bigger. Parked in a lover's lane one night, they witness a man bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with a tire iron. In the movie's most notorious scene, Carter reaches a pitch of erotic frenzy from this random act of sadistic voyeurism. Gargan then has to investigate the crime while keeping mum about the fact that he saw it happen. Of course it turns out that the murderer was not a stranger, but a well-to-do banker friend of Carter's.... Night Editor is a splendid example of why, in the early postwar years, audiences took to these dimly lit, zero-budget, quick-and-dirty crime dramas: They were unapologetically sleazy, they had no time for the sentimental gloss that Hollywood had confected, and they were shocking fun.