Peter Burnett

 

 

 

Welcome to the website of author

Peter Burnett

 

 

http://leamingtonbooks.com


To avoid making audiences read subtitles in-a-da movies, foreign-speaking characters are generally played by actors speaking Amerenglish with a variety of accents.  We are used to this, and don’t mind a bit of it — the English is handy so we can understand what’s being said, and the accent is handy because then we know what they're actually supposed to be saying.  Marlon Brando — a self-confessed MASTER of accents — muddled his entire way through The Young Lions pretending to be German (pronounce this ‘Chairman’) with lines like "Ve vill sturm the Ardennes and crush dee Amerikanz"  — and although he didn’t say that, at least there were plenty real American accents in the film to provide contrast.  In So Dark the Night (1946) by Joseph H. Lewis, these issues are exacerbated as the entire film is set in France — making it the most unwatchable film-noir of them all.

 

Article moved here: https://www.classicfilmnoir.com/2019/04/so-dark-night-1946.html

 

Steven Geray, born Istvan Gyergyay (10 November 1904 - 26 December 1973) appeared in over 100 films and dozens of television programs. See him in Spellbound (1945), Gilda (1946), In a Lonely Place (1950), All About Eve (1950), Call Me Madam (1953) and To Catch a Thief (1955).

 

 

 

 

C'est Noir

If you do get that far, you will at least be treated to the richly symbolic image of the lead actor smashing a window — and in fact if you have nothing else to do while watching it, do count how many window shots there are in the movie — I’ll wager there will be too many for you. 

Burnett Guffey lighted and photographed the film and he included windows all over the place, in an attempt to guide the viewer towards the final, crazy scene.  And although the film is cheap, confused and adheres to its own logic and nobody else's, it retains a special place due to the convention breaking insanity into which it peaks; that and the fact that it is about the only feature which promoted actor Steven Geray to lead. 

Here is some bumbling peasant action from So Dark the Night, as Steven Geray playing sophisticated Parisienne policeman arrives in the murderous backwater in which most of the film is set.