So Dark the Night

Another Columbia film from the noir series on Criterion is So Dark the Night, which at first blush is not a noir but a murder mystery, but has a twist ending that makes it somewhat noirish.

Set in France, the main character is the best detective on the Paris police force (Steven Garay). He hasn't had a vacation in 11 years, so is sent off to countryside to relax. He is attracted to the daughter of the innkeepers, and she is attracted to him, but she's engaged to a brutish farmer. They decide to get married anyway, but then she turns up dead. All suspicion falls on the farmer, but then he is murdered. Garay is on the case.

It would be criminal to disclose anymore. There are limited suspects, so a sharp viewer may be able to figure it out ahead of time, but I happily was not. I'll give you a hint: if you've seen Black Angel, this will be familiar to you.

So Dark the Night (the title is meaningless) was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, and released in 1946. It has no stars of note, at least none that I recognized, but the performances are fine. Oddly, the characters speak both English and French, although in reality they would all be speaking French. There are no English speaking characters, so it's odd that the whole thing isn't in English.

So Dark the Night is not a great picture, it's merely competent, and at a nice length--70 minutes.