Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

info-269-534447 THIS MOVIE ROCKS! For the time, it must have been a real serious hit.The cinematography is WAY ahead of its time, with superb lighting, sound The acting is tight, effective, real, sincere...not a classic film noir, but one filled with a smart and very dark heart, that reflects almost existentially on life, modern life...on love, on the mob mentality in reverse...and all the rest.Henry Fonda's performance is nothing short of miraculous. Vincent Price plays the insincere sincere magician so effectively, that we almost believe him, no matter what he is saying...brilliant writing, brilliant execution.THANK YOU T C M....it's what's for breakfast.ee ithaca ny

TheLittleSongbird Henry Fonda, Vincent Price and the film noir genre are reasons enough to see any film, and The Long Night did show a lot of promise. I didn't find that the The Long Night quite delivered enough, but it certainly has a lot of good things. It's very well made for starters, one of the most beautifully shot and visually atmospheric film noirs of the 1940s in my opinion. Dmitri Tiomkin's music is far from his best work with a lot of it sounding like re-arranged Beethoven(you decide whether you consider that a compliment, but it is very haunting and fits the film very well. But the high point of The Long Night was the acting. Henry Fonda gives an intelligently sensitive lead performance, and Barbara Bel Geddes- managing to look younger than she was- in her film debut is very touching as the love interest. Ann Dvorak is deliciously cynical, and Vincent Price is effortlessly ominous and smarmy as an utter sleaze-bag of a character(people will argue that he was at odds at the rest of the film but I rest the blame on the writing not Price). The Long Night does have faults though, the characters are not fleshed out enough to make me care for them(I would have cared more for Joe if the "when he's in jeopardy" scenario had been made less emotionally hollow and senseless), while the script is of rather rambling quality with Bel Geddes' final speech particularly contrived-sounding. The Long Night also lacks momentum pace-wise- well the final twenty minutes picks up a bit but comes too late- and the constant switching back from past to present and vice versa is enough to cause confusion. There are even some ideas like with Joe and Charlene's involvement with one another that are shoehorned in but not explained satisfactorily. So in conclusion, interesting for the cast and how it was made, but with stronger script and story execution it would've been less underwhelming than it turned out to be. 6/10 Bethany Cox

vincentlynch-moonoi I was not familiar with this film when it turned up on TCM, but I'm glad I didn't skip over it. It's a darned good "sort of" film noir, which for the most part seems rather realistic.Henry Fonda is excellent here as a WWII vet for whom things quickly go down hill, despite being well-liked by virtually everyone. And that's why his performance is so good -- he plays a wide variety of emotions here -- joy, love, despair, anger -- each done effectively.Barbara Bel Geddes made her film debut here, having come from Broadway. She was always a very different actress, as you see here, but quite effective. Ann Dvorak has an odd role here as a sort of "the other woman", and former state assistant to a magician. She is quite effective, as well. I'm not sure what to make of Vincent Price here. As the magician, and a liar, he is quite creepy, but I can't quite decide on the quality of his performance. One problem is that his makeup is quite distracting, and I think poorly done. So while he is supposed to be older and more mature, his skin looks very young while his hair is gray.One of the things that was done very effectively here was the telling of the story through flashbacks, including at one point a double-flashback! That technique is, in my view, often overdone. But here it is the perfect way to tell the whole story. Bravo to the screenwriters and the director! The score for this film is supposed to be notable...by Dimitri Tiompkin. Well, I don't see it as being notable...just overly loud and oppressive. And, that's odd. A film score is meant to compliment a film, not overpower it. And, I generally like Dimitri Tiompkin.Although the ending is not quite satisfying, this is a very good film that will keep you watching! Recommended.

calvinnme I've never seen the original French film upon which this film was based, but I can tell you I kept waiting for a plot line payoff that never came. It has everything going for it - solid cast giving good believable performances, good direction, even a good speech that Fonda's character delivers from this broken out window as he is under siege by the police that gives us some insight into what it's like for an average guy who has returned home from years of killing and seeing killing in the war expected to pick up where he left off. But ultimately, I never see anything that Fonda's character, factory laborer Joe Adams, has been put through as far as shock or emotional torment or even disillusionment that would justifiably cause him to kill a man. Is Vincent Price's character Maximillian eloquently taunting and creepy? Yes, and in a way that Price excelled at over the years starting in noirs and proceeding on into his horror films. However, at no time does he do anything that would drive anybody to do more than shoo him away or stuff earplugs in their ears or possibly call the ASPCA (You'll have to watch the film to understand this last remark). I'm giving this film a five just for the fact that I believe the production code is the reason any hard edges that seem to be just under the surface never appear. I'm almost positive the script would have gone further if the censors would have allowed it to be so.The real point of interest to me was the action of the police, who behave a lot like the fascists that Joe Adams spent years fighting in WWII. Sure they have a murderer holed up in his rented room, but he's holding no hostages, they've emptied the building, and still they spray him twice with automatic gunfire unannounced - once from the outside into his window, then from the stairwell into the door. When he pushes a sturdy dresser against the door and they realize they can't force their way in THEN they try talking to Joe, starting with the line "We're not fooling"?? No kidding! After Fonda's speech to the crowd, once the crowd starts voicing their support for Joe and promising financial help with a lawyer the police form a line and practically trample the crowd forcing them out of the street. I don't know if the heavy handedness of the police was something that Litvak wanted the audience to notice, but it was something I noticed.I'd recommend this one just for the good performances and atmosphere and some imagery you don't see that much in films immediately after WWII, but don't expect something shocking or even interesting to happen just because of all of the talent assembled here.