Berkeley university professor adjusts (using alcohol) to tragic fire deaths of wife & son.Berkeley university professor adjusts (using alcohol) to tragic fire deaths of wife & son.Berkeley university professor adjusts (using alcohol) to tragic fire deaths of wife & son.
- Katherine Mead
- (as Nancy Davis)
- Anne Ainley
- (as Rosemary De Camp)
- Margaret Andersen
- (as Katharine Warren)
- Undetermined Role
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOne of two films starring Ray Milland that deals with alcoholism and co-stars a wife of Ronald Reagan. This one features his second wife, Nancy Reagan (credited here as Nancy Davis, her pre-marriage name), and the other, The Lost Weekend (1945), features his first wife, Jane Wyman.
- GoofsShadow of the helicopter on the clock tower in the closing scene.
- Quotes
Katherine Mead: [as Phillip opens the window to jump to his death] Phil, wait! Don't! I'm not going to try to stop you. Please listen to me. I stood exactly like that once. Exactly. Only it was a bridge. And I stood there quite calmly, looking at the lights of the city that no longer existed. And I would have hated anyone who said "don't" or "wait". And then someone did say it, all the way across the Pacific. I heard Dan, telling me not to do it. You could hear Anne and Timmy. That's what they'd say to you. As long as you live, they have a special kind of immortality, Phil. They're alive as long as you're around. Let them live, Phil. Let them live!
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Story (1951)
Yet, this was no longer the era of Nick and Nora Charles or Robert Benchley, when being drunk was cute or comic. So, when imbibing America needed a cautionary tale, Ray Milland was the right protagonist, as he proved in The Lost Weekend. Night into Morning isn't about alcoholism per se but about the response to a horrible tragedy. Lost Weekend was about alcoholism as a lifestyle. Night into Morning is about a binge that is carrying Milland over a precipice.
The casting is flawless. Milland, like Holden, has this seemingly easy way of acting. By being himself, he is the part. I like Nancy Davis better with every new viewing. What I used to regard as wooden, I now see as measured, kind of like the great Anne Revere. Here she's quite believable as a voice of reason, a voice on our behalf, responding to Milland's woes as we should.
And then there's John Hodiak. What can I say? He died so young that everything he was in becomes precious. And this may be one of his best performances, as Milland's best friend and colleague. Hodiak may have been pushed aside when the big stars returned from WWII, but for me he still chews up the scenery. The looks, the voice. It just occurred to me that had Hodiak survived he might well have settled into a Lloyd Nolan career. Dawn Adams gets good screen time as the girlfriend of the lug whom Professor Milland is going to flunk. The bit parts are not neglected. Whit Bissel has a great little turn as a headstone salesman. The cocktail waitress/student appealed to me a lot, and it turns out that Mary Lawrence playing her was 32 at the time!
Aside for the casting, the production is first-rate. There was a trend in the era for location shooting. In this case, Berkeley gets to play the college town, with a long sequence with Davis and Hodiak on campus, and a scene from the Tower. There's also a bang-up crash scene, though by necessity back at the studio.
There are a couple of problems that preclude perfection. There's a a connection with elderly neighbors that doesn't go anywhere. It was great to see Jean Hagan, but her part should have been developed more, in place of the useless footage of the elderly neighbors.
Night into Morning ends with what, to today's ears, seems a corny send-off, "Go with God". As a product of its time, it's not so corny. War hangover, the Holocaust, The Bomb, atheist Communism ginned up by McCarthyism, and the rat race. Plus ordinary misfortune that's always hitting someone, somewhere -- sooner or later you or me. Or just plain ennui. It seems that movies like Lost Weekend, Night into Morning, The Man in the Grey flannel Suit, are appealing to contemporary audiences to use faith and friendship instead of fixes. It's no coincidence that at the same time AA was getting noticed for sending this message.
- jacksflicks
- Jan 1, 2016
- Permalink
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $777,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 26 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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