Nightmare (1942) User Reviews

Diana Barrymore and Brian Donlevy in British noir

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 16 January 2022]

Diana Barrymore and Brian Donlevy star in "Nightmare" from 1942.

Daniel Shane (Brian Donlevy) roams the streets of London, having lost his business in an air raid. He overhears a couple talking about putting a key under the mat as they leave; he lets himself in, finds some eggs, cooks them, and eats.

A young woman, Leslie Stafford (Barrymore) enters, and Daniel explains his predicament. She doesn't want him to leave. He explains he's sailing to America with the shirt on his back to join the war effort. She promises him money and a new suit if he will do her a favor.

She takes him upstairs, and inside a room is a man, head on a desk, knife in his back. She asks Daniel to get rid of the body. It's her husband; she claims she didn't kill him.

Daniel does what she asks. Only one problem - the body shows up again in exactly the same place! Now they get out, heading for her cousin's in a car that each thinks belongs to the other. It doesn't.

A likeable cast enlivens this film, which has some witty dialogue. Donlevy is terrific as he tries to sort out what he's gotten himself into - unafraid, relaxed, and seeing it all as a challenge.

Diana Barrymore is very good; she was a lovely actress. Unfortunately, her personal problems got in the way, and she was dead by the age of 38. When she was down on her luck, Tyrone Power gave her money. A sad life.

I immediately recognized Hans Conried, Uncle Tonoose from the Danny Thomas Show, in a small role. I'm not sure why I recognized him.

Entertaining film.

Are you a burglar?

[AAdaSC · 7/10 · 10 November 2015]

Brian Donlevy (Daniel) breaks into a stranger's house for a meal during a blackout. That stranger is Diana Barrymore (Leslie) and when she stumbles across him sitting down eating a meal in her kitchen, she asks if he is a burglar. His answer – "I might be". This guy is one cool customer. He has even taken his jacket off and hung it up. However, he is lured into a Nazi plot once he agrees to help Diana get rid of a body that she has upstairs. The film plays out as a Hitchcock-like spy thriller with a cast of familiar faces.

I enjoyed this film. It started off as a potentially spooky nightmare film and I had no idea where it was going, especially once Diana reveals her second discovery to Donlevy. Woah! The film keeps you watching as it keeps flowing and the lead actors are both likable. Donlevy provides the film with a funny ending. We all want to know what's in that bottle. Ha ha.

Back to the film's beginning. I had a friend who once walked into a stranger's house and helped himself to breakfast. When the resident girl came down to breakfast and got a surprise, she called her mother downstairs and they all introduced themselves. It was in the countryside and he'd got the wrong house. My friend then decided that he fancied the mum and started to peel potatoes for her with the ultimate aim of pinching her bottom. Donlevy has that same kind of cheek when it's meal-time. So, remember to hang your jacket up when you next sit down for a meal.

Intriguing little political thriller, exciting despite familarity to others like it.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 26 August 2015]

Be wary of breaking into somebody's house to find food. You may end up with more than an upset stomach. That's what American Brian Donlevy finds being down on his luck while in England and encountering pretty Diana Barrymore whom he believes has killed a man in her study. She promises not to prosecute him if he helps her get rid of the body but when he shows up again, she pretends not to recognize him. However, the mysterious body returns and once again, she is begging for his help. "You've got a Tiffany front with a hock shop behind it" he tells her, "and I can see through you like cellophane!" There are indeed some great memorable quotes in this movie.

"A little beating every now and then is as good for a high-strung woman as it is for a horse", says Henry Daniell as a mysterious man from Barrymore's past, and this leads to suspicion that she's involved in something more nefarious than just the discovery of a corpse and its sudden return. This reminded me a lot of Hitchcock's 1935 classic "The 39 Steps" with its twists and turns of a man becoming involved in a plot that had absolutely nothing to do with him and ending up on the run because of a strange woman who comes into his life.

Diana Barrymore had the potential of becoming a great star but unfortunately her personal life got into the way of her dedication to her craft and prevented her from continuing on stage or screen. She gives an emotionally charged performance with Donlevy pretty much reacting to her even though he brings out the American charm on her to get her to help her lighten up towards him. While the revelations of what's behind the corpse is obvious as the plot unfolds (especially considering the time this was made), it is fun to watch it all come together.

Sweet cousin's ominous plans.

[ulicknormanowen · 6/10 · 7 October 2022]

It begins as a whodunit (the title is justified ,because a corpse is taken away and reappears ) and ends ,like many works of the era as a spy thriller,to be precise a propaganda movie ( Barrymore's lines about the American and the English are revealing )like so many others at the time . An American man and a British girl becoming allies to fight Nazi spies ,what a symbol! To drive the point home ,she tells her attentive escort that the Lord is NOT of Scottish origin,he was adopted by her uncle !Actually he comes from...you 've guessed it!

Based on a pattern recalling "the thirty-nine steps" , it is ,in the second half , more "notorious " (released four years later) ,with a trick of the bottles astutely used : the enemy's weapon backfires on them.

Still entertaining ,after all these years !

Stumbles into the situation

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 25 July 2015]

Nightmare is one of those routine noir films with a wartime era plot from Universal that Alfred Hitchcock might have been able to put over. I saw elements of Saboteur, The 39 Steps and the later North By Northwest in the story.

What Nightmare does give us is a chance to look at Diana Barrymore in one of the few films she made. She certainly had the classical training that enabled her to cast as an Englishwoman who has just had her husband murdered. The husband is played by Henry Daniell and sadly he's on ever so briefly.

Daniell is working on discovering a 5th columnist in the wartime United Kingdom and he turns out to be in the family and titled. Brian Donlevy like any Hitchcockian hero sort of stumbles into the situation.

Nightmare is a good, but routine wartime espionage story. It's a no frills product from Universal which would not have afforded those added Hitchcock like touches to make it truly great.

Excellent espionage thriller with fascinating leading lady

[robert-temple-1 · 8/10 · 31 July 2007]

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.

Great Start, Then Trails Off

[boblipton · 5/10 · 3 February 2020]

Brian Donleavy is broke and at loose ends until his ship leaves for America, so he enters a private home to make himself some ham and eggs. The owner, Diana Barrymore, discovers him, and he's about to leave without a fuss, when she asks him to remove the body of her husband from his office. He's got a knife in his back. Donleavy disposes of it, but when he returns, Miss Barrymore high-hats him... until she asks him to remove the body, which is back where it had been. At this point, the police break in the front door, and the two flee the premises.

It's a great start to the movie from a story by Phillip MacDonald, but it soon turns into a retread of THE 39 STEPS, with a trip to Scottish mansion. Donleavy offers a solid performance as usual, but Miss Barrymore seems more confused and withdrawn than her role calls for... and that seems inconsistently written. She does photograph beautifully with George Barnes handling the cameras.

Non horror entry in Universal's SHOCK! television package

[kevinolzak · 8/10 · 28 April 2011]

1942's "Nightmare" was a higher budget 'B' from Universal, who were hoping that name value would make a star out of top billed Diana Barrymore (John's daughter, Drew's aunt). Unfortunately, her obvious talent failed to translate into box office success, quickly retiring from the screen, only to star in tabloid headlines for the rest of her unhappy life (dead at age 38 of a drug overdose in 1960). This particular feature may be her finest showcase, with a most unorthodox leading man in 40 year old Brian Donlevy, whose character, an American stranded in London, raises nary an eyebrow when she asks him to dispose of a dead body in her upstairs study. We later find that the corpse is that of her long unseen husband (Henry Daniell), who turned up on her doorstep in time to be murdered by persons unknown, but not before offering up a dying clue with his last breath. Understandably fearing that she might be arrested, and puzzled when the corpse winds up back in the study after being safely transported across town hours before, she ends up swiping a car so they can escape to Scotland to visit her wealthy cousin (Gavin Muir). Brian Donlevy proved to be an underrated leading man, but did fine work here, and in Fox programmers "Half Angel," "Born Reckless," and especially "Midnight Taxi." Henry Daniell is criminally wasted, but other small roles are well played by such familiar performers as Arthur Shields, Hans Conreid, John Abbott, and Ian Wolfe (playing a nastier butler than usual). Holds up fairly well until the end, but definitely NOT a horror film, despite its status among Universal's SHOCK! package of genre titles issued to television in the late 50's (Pittsburgh's CHILLER THEATER never showed it, but Minneapolis' HORROR INCORPORATED did).

A great deal of this makes no sense at all.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 21 February 2020]

When the story begins, Daniel (Brian Donlevy) meets a woman in London who is in distress. Leslie (Diana Barrymore) has found a dead body in her home and asks this total stranger to get rid of the body. And sane person would get the police...but inexplicably Daniel does exactly what the woman asks. Later, when he returns to the flat, she pretends to not know him...and he is naturally miffed. She also acts rather superior...which is odd because she is appears to be a murderer! Soon, another body turns up in her place...stabbed just like the last one. Now you'd REALLY think a sane person would get the police, but instead the pair run off!! Does any of this make sense? No...not in the least. Eventually, their paths lead to spies and sabotage!!

I think there are two main problems with the film. First, parts of the script simply make no sense. Second, Diana Barrymore was terrible. Every line she delivered sounded haughty and angry...and there was nothing subtle about her acting at all. Clearly she had not inherited her famous father's talents! Most of the reviews are very positive...but I just couldn't get past Barrymore's acting and bad writing.

"A little beating once in awhile is as good for a high-strung woman as it is for a horse."

[utgard14 · 4/10 · 10 August 2020]

Another one of those "wrongfully accused man and woman on the run" thrillers, notable only as one of the few starring vehicles for John Barrymore's daughter Diana. Brian Donlevy is slightly miscast as a down-on-his-luck gambler who inexplicably gets involved with a woman who may have killed someone. Also Nazis because 1942. It's all rather muddled and hard to follow or care. Donlevy's dialogue makes me think his part was written with Humphrey Bogart or maybe Alan Ladd in mind. For her part Diana Barrymore has a bland screen presence and spits out her lines like they taste as bad as they sound. Supporting cast is ok. Slow pace with no memorable scenes. Not a particularly good picture.

solid suspenser

[mysterymoviegoer · 9/10 · 2 January 2007]

It is not easy to track down a decent copy of this 1942 tale of intrigue, but if you do it is well worth the look. The main attraction of Nightmare may lie in the fact that it represents the most prominent feature to star John Barrymore's daughter Diana as the female lead. Her career descended into alcoholism pretty quickly after this. She does fairly well as a British lady, resembling her niece Drew more than a little. The plot concerns an American military man, due to return to the States,(Brian Donlevy)who lets himself into a house one night during a blackout and helps himself to a couple of scrambled eggs. He thinks the house is empty, but it has an occupant who draws him into a web of murder, deception and the complex plotting of a nest of Nazi spies. That the story works as well as it does, and the dialog is briskly intelligent, owes a lot to the book by Philip MacDonald, a Scottish mystery writer and screenwriter who worked with Hitchcock. There are a number of similarities to The Thirty Nine Steps, and the British sets were re-used in the Sherlock Holmes series done at Universal at the time, so you'll be expecting Basil Rathbone to show up at any time. Director Whelan does yeoman work, though you may find yourself wondering what little twists and devices Hitchcock would have embellished this story with had he been directing. It is his kind of material. Donlevy is just fine, reliable and dependable as always. The usually smirking Henry Daniell has a small part as a wandering corpse, seen briefly in flashback. Gavin Muir is Barrymore's cousin who owns a big whiskey distillery in Scotland, and you'll see a few others from Universal's Holmes series in small parts along the way. Nightmare revives very well. It moves and keeps you guessing. Is there any way a good copy could be found and preserved and made commercially available to the public. This film deserves it.

Brian Donleavy as an American getting caught up in an espioange mess in London and Scotland

[clanciai · 8/10 · 27 February 2020]

Brian Donleavy finds himself mixed up in a curious muddle of spy intrigue, as the corpse he initially agrees to help Diana Barrymore get rid of most unexpectedly returns next night to the same place with knife in his back and all, so they have to do away with it a second time, which proves more difficult, as this is an advanced spy intrigue still in the beginning of the second world war with Nazis all over the place working for Germany in Britain, particularly Scotland, as it appears later. It is not a bad film, although rather mediocre and superficial, but you must not miss the whisky war in the end. Diana Barrymore is beautful and makes the right impression as something enigmatical out of this world, while Brian Donleavy blunders on as usual with obligatory American rudeness. It's great entertainment but not much more, especially today, since the war and its initial perils are over since more than 75 years.

Early Universal Proto-Noir

[melvelvit-1 · 8/10 · 18 June 2007]

Flat broke, American gambler Dan Shane (Brian Donlevy) steals into what he thinks is an empty townhouse during a blackout in London looking for something to eat. He's discovered by the owner, Ambassador's daughter Leslie Stafford (Diana Barrymore), who desperately needs his help and offers to pay him to dispose of her husband's body (Henry Daniell), lying upstairs with a knife in his back. Intrigued, Dan agrees and, pretending to be a pair of drunks, loads the body into a taxi and takes off. The next day he goes to see Leslie and she tries to give him the brush-off but they end up on the run from the police after they discover her husband's body exactly where they first found him -upstairs. Leslie and Dan flee to Scotland to enlist her cousin Abbington's (Gavin Muir) help and rush headlong into a nest of Nazi spies...

This 1942 Universal entry had a twofold purpose: it was typical, topical, morale-boosting wartime entertainment showing solidarity with our Allies as well as being the third attempt to turn John Barrymore's daughter, Diana, into a major star. The first third of the movie is pure pulp fiction with the protagonist wandering into a web of murder and intrigue by becoming involved with a woman who may have killed her husband. Beginning with a rainstorm during a blackout, the dark and shadowy cinematography foreshadows later Film Noir using Universal's back lot as a stand-in for London and Scotland. The story, some of it told in flashback, by mystery writer Phillip MacDonald (THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER), starts out with a cynical, hard-boiled attitude before becoming sidetracked in a routine "good guys vs. Nazi spies" finish. Sample dialogue: "You've got a Tiffany front but a hock-shop in back -I can see through you like cellophane" and some of it is slightly risqué: Dan tells Leslie that her name isn't a woman's and he might as well call her "Butch" -which he does for the rest of the film. There's also plenty of anti-German propaganda later on once the film switches gears. Leslie's cousin in Scotland owns a distillery (where explosives are packed in whiskey bottles) but she's quick to explain that Abbington isn't a Scot, telling Dan that he was adopted as a child in Germany. That's all Dan needs to know, saying, "They get 'em young and train 'em early." Abbington's attack dogs are, of course, German as well. Earlier, Leslie coerced Dan into helping her by hiding his ticket home to the States -he spent his last dime trying to get back to enlist in the service. Paramount's THIS GUN FOR HIRE was made the same year and also blended film noir with flag-waving propaganda. This dark trend would continue throughout the war years, culminating in 1944's MINISTRY OF FEAR.

Diana Barrymore, an attractive and capable actress, started slipping down the cast lists and made only three more films before leaving Hollywood in 1944. Her odyssey of alcoholism and police blotters was chronicled in her autobiography, TOO MUCH, TOO SOON, which was made into a film starring Dorothy Malone as Diana and Errol Flynn as her dad in 1958. Diana killed herself with an overdose of pills and liquor in 1960 after falling hopelessly in love with Tennessee Williams when she appeared in his play "Garden District" (aka SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER).

NIGHTMARE gets a solid 8/10 as Golden Age entertainment but only a 5/10 on the noir-o-meter -for the reel darkness during the first third of the movie ...and the real darkness behind the scenes.