NIGHT MUST FALL

UK, 1964, 101 minutes, Black and white.
Albert Finney, Mona Washbourne, Susan Hampshire, Sheila Hancock, Michael Medwin.
Directed by Karel Reisz.

A very popular and well-written play by actor-writer Emlyn Williams. Filmed in 1937 by director Richard Thorpe, it had excellent performances from Robert Montgomery as the schizophrenic murderer and Rosalind Russell and Dame May Whitty, it became something of a classic of the suspense of madness and murder.

It was remade in the sixties with Albert Finney taking the Montgomery part and Mona Washbourne, excellent in so many films from If... to Stevie, the part of the elderly infatuated lady. This time the direction was by Karel Reisz, who had made the successful Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and This Sporting Life and who was to make such films as Isadora, The Gambler and Who'll Stop the Rain. It was effective in its way though not as successful and with such impact as the original.

1. The significance and tone of the title? For whom did night have to fall? Danny, Mrs Bramson, Olivia, all men and women?

2. How successful a thriller was this? What thriller conventions did the film use, well? Thriller situations and characters, suspense and climax?

3. Did the film use black and white photography well? musical background?(Or was the music too strident?) Comment on the success of the screenplay: the initial murder, the home scenes with the Bramsons, the interweaving of the police search, the interplay of characters, the climax?

4. How important was it that we knew Danny was a murderer at first? What insight into his character did this give? How did it prejudice or give presuppositions for our view of him? How was this knowledge balanced by his presentation of himself and his reaction to the police search?

5. How well presented was the psychotic murder? Did the film enable audiences to understand such a psychotic? Or did it merely observe without exploring? How is it possible for a man to be, such a psychotic? His charm, niceness, his ugliness and fear and violence? His family background, Mrs Bramson as mother, the murderous hate?

6. How well did Albert Finney portray Danny? Did the portrayal give insight into his character? The innocence and fun, the change? The cunning and shrewdness and ugly violence? The need for love and yet the selfishness? Danny as still a child? As a self-centred adolescent? And the impact of this on adult lives, adults treating him as an adult? The destructive force in this?

7. How real was Mrs Bramson? Her early tyranny and hypochondria? Her attitude toward her daughter? Her attitude towards Dora as a servant? Her fascination with Danny and her using him? His being charming and the effect on her life, wanting him to call her mother, unable to do things without him, playing games? The horror of her death?

8. Was Olivia an interesting character? Her relationship with her mother, with her boyfriend? Her role in the house, relationship with Dora? Her fascination with Danny, following him, searching his room, her loving him? Was this credible? Her disillusionment with him? Dora's confrontation? The final discovery and its effect on her? Was the character of Olivia well explored?

9. Did Dora's character balance Olivia's? Dora's ordinariness, servant, fascination with Danny, jealousy, but the truth?

10. Did the character of the boyfriend add anything to the film? In relation to Olivia? As a contrast with Danny?

11. How well did the film use the contrasts of locations? The house, the forest and the police search, the town sequences? Did this give an authenticity to the melodramatic situations?

12. The use of the forest, the rain, the chanting, the night? rain and night?

13. The importance of Danny’s room as a location in the film? The panning shots around the room, especially the focus on the box with the head? Danny and his relationship to his room?

14. How horrifying was the murder, even if expected? Its impact within the film?

15. The significance of the finale, Olivia's knowledge of the truth, Danny's retreating into childishness, the pathetic nature of the ending for the characters?