A grisly murder transpires in the vicinity of the abode of Mrs. Bramson (Whitty), an invalid dowager whose imperiousness is insufferable to those who are near her, especially her niece Olivia (Russell), a bespectacled maiden whom she constantly reams at the drop of a hat.
Mrs. Bramson’s is a household without males, so arrives a pageboy “Babyface” Danny (Montgomery), the boyfriend of maid Dora (Tottenham, whose peculiar elocution , who can insinuate himself into Mrs. Bramson’s favor down pat, but is he the perpetrator of the foregoing murder? That is a question hovering over Olivia’s head ever since she first lays her eyes on Danny.
Remarkable for its time, Richard Thorpe’s NIGHT MUST FALL is not the wonted drawing-room whodunit, for it goes deeper into the psychosexual domain where rationality barely has a purchase. Olivia, the seemingly straitlaced bleeding-heart, is she not above to carry out some sinister action herself? The script (based on Emlyn Williams’ play) only teases that vileness briefly, and during the toe-to-toe between Olivia and Danny, it is the palpable sexual tension that sustains the suspense and gives Olivia’s climactic, almost suicidal resignation an appalling impulse that she is a girl struggling with her repressed sexuality and is willing to perish so that she can get it over with, even the story sets up a perfect suitor for her in the person of the eligible family lawyer Justin Laurie (Marshal). Of course, it is unconceivable that the movie would end with a tub-thumping denouement due to the production code, but before that eleventh-hour rescue, NIGHT MUST FALL reaches that abyss of human desire with admirable grits.
Tellingly, with no red herrings to divert our suspicion, a viewer can almost fathom that Danny is the murderer, conspicuously betrayed by a heavy, locked hat box he brings with him (the victim is decapitated and her head is missing!), and his psychopathic ramblings are quite rudimentary viewed today, but Montgomery seizes upon the opportunity to unleash Danny’s charming-but-deadly perversion and delusion adroitly and eloquently, he can switch from sweet-talking to smothering in a trice and when he finally levels with Olivia, the candor he imparts makes his heinous act almost excusatory. Opposing to a reactive Russell, who also plays against the type she mostly excels in, Montgomery gets an upper hand every time, and garners his first Oscar nomination grandly.
Reprising her role on stage, Dame May Whitty makes her spright debut in Hollywood in her seventies as the chocolate-gobbling, niggling Ms. Bramson, rules the roost to a fare-thee-well, indulges in Danny’s smarmy care and when the crunch comes, she is terrific as an unwitting victim who can bring off a frisson of dread and despair in her last-minute catchlight. Often evoking repugnance and amazement in the same breath, she is a national treasure who keeps NIGHT MUST FALL still immensely watchable despite its modest production and anonymous directorial maneuver.
referential entries: George Marshall’s THE BLUE DAHLIA (1946, 6.7/10); Anatole Litvak’s THE SNAKE PIT (1948, 8.4/10).