Cornell Woolrich was the source of many scripts from the time he was writing in the thirties (in the last century) up until now. His books themselves are hopelessly outdated in writing style, overwritten and florid - but the plots - he was a veritable Agatha Christie when it came to cooking up noir twists and turns. One of my favorites was his novella Nightmare, here (forgive me) hypnotically brought to the screen with moody settings, bayous drenched in rain, mirrored rooms, seedy hotel rooms in New Orleans, a weird strangulated score based on the songs in the movie and great performances by ALL involved, a suspicious Edward G. Robinson who's a hard boiled cop reprising his performance in Double Indemnity with his wife's brother Kevin McCarthy as the foil instead of Fred McMurray. Only in this picture McCarthy is innocent. McCarthy, hitting his stride in, in my opinion, the best sci-fi thriller of all time, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. did NIGHTMARE the same year and brings believability to his role as the skittish and floundering jazz musician living in a New Orleans seedy hotel while drifting through the Bourbon Street Bar scene. In one scene he picks up a prostitute (which you feel he's done before as their bar banter is done with the greatest of ease.) Even though, of course, he has a girlfriend, and only freaks and bolts from her apartment when, in a weird shot in the mirror, the prostitute reminds him of the woman in the mirrored room of his nightmare...in which he feels he's killed someone and though there's no proof, can't get it out of his mind. Turns out McCarthy was hypnotized into believing he killed someone and why not? The plot's half noir and half giallo anyway. What is the secret of the mirrored room? Does it exist? Of course. And the murder was all very real and executed with great aplomb by the extremely creepy Gage Clarke who in a dual role moves into McCarthy's seedy hotel as presumably just another transient but in a bizarre and disquieting scene actually comes into McCarthy's room with a candle and hypnotizes him further to keep him under his control. You have to check this villain's voice out and his hypnotic structured repetitions for a real spooked out treat. McCarthy is excellent - paranoid and losing it. His girlfriend Connie Russell is the penultimate pin-up babe of the fifties, going the length for 'her man' while decked out in tight sweaters and singing some low down numbers live and in the studio, such as 'It was the last I ever saw of that man' and ' What's Your Sad Story, it can't be sadder than mine' Virginia Christine, Mrs. Olson 'It's Mountain Grown', fresh from co-starring with McCarthy in INVASION, doesn't disappoint here and rounds out a great cast as the pregnant wife of Edward G. Robinson. Pretty much a controlling hysteric type, she goes bananas during thunderstorms with great aplomb! Maxwell Shane directed this material before in FEAR IN THE NIGHT which is fairly unremarkable with a few good moments. But NIGHTMARE is great! The plot is not at all dated and has no holes but is neatly devised and carried out. In the end everything makes sense. I think this movie is vastly underrated and a strange and strong entry in the noir canon. There's something haunting about it you can't shake off.
Review of Nightmare
