Dead Of Night (1945) Dir. Cavalcanti/Crichton

[jasonmichel]

I borrowed this DVD from a friend last night being a lover of classic cinema and horror especially.

From the beginning I was struck by how many ITLAD-ian themes were presented in this film:
deja vu, premonitions, falling out of time, duality of consciousness, the eternal return, etc ...

It is also a genuinely enthralling and at times creepy picture.

Wiki says this about it:
"Architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) arrives at a country house party where he reveals to the other assembled guests that he has seen them all in a recurring dream. He has no prior personal knowledge of them, but he knows that each has a disturbing story to tell, while he also shows amazing knowledge of spontaneous events in the house before they unfold. The other guests attempt to test Craig's foresight, while entertaining each other with various tales of uncanny or supernatural events that they experienced or were told about."

I've found it on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-h87StFquI

I don't want to discuss it anymore as it would spoil the film for those who haven't seen it.
What do you guys think?

Jason

[A Dark Philosopher]

Hi Jason. Sorry mate, personally never seen it. Hopefully some of our "film buffs" will be able to add their thoughts.

[rafromca]

I remember seeing this film and thought it was very good. The dummy part was particularly strong and was remade more recently. It does have some ITLADic elements to it, the premonitions of the architect and the recurrence, the race car driver too, and some of the shifts in time. The dummy might be considered a rather sinister and very judgmental daemon driving the poor guy mad. HB should definitely have a look at it.

[Anthony Peake]

This movie is one of my all time favourites. I first saw it back in the early 1960's and it scared the hell out of me. As Ruth said the section with the dummy was a particulary daemonic bit. This section was remade and expanded into a whole movie in 1978. The movie was called Magic and the main character was played by Anthony Hopkins.

I again agree with Ruth that the whole movie had an itladic theme running through it ..... and, of course the back-story that frames the individual narratives is totally itladic in philosophy and application. Indeed I have always suspected that it was this movie that introduced my younger mind to the concept of the eternal return.

Jason, thanks for posting this at just the right time. Today I am travelling to Cambridge to spend a week at the university library. I am being allowed access to hundreds of personal letters sent to J.B. Priestley in the early 1960's. These have never been looked at in any detail since Priestley himself read them nearly 50 years ago. This is an honour indeed and I would like to thank Priestley's son Tom, for both letting me know about these letters and assisting in my access to them.

It will be fascinating if we find that JBP was also involved in the writing of a section of In Dead of Night. Keep digging Jason!

Oh yes, and what day of itladian-movie significance is it tomorrow?

[A Dark Philosopher]

Oh yes, and what day of itladian-movie significance is it tomorrow?

BLOG (2008) - you remembered!

[Hurlyburly]

Thanks for posting this Jason, I haven't seen this but will add it to my lovefilm list now. Must finish Studio 60 on the sunset strip first though because I am slightly in love with Aaron Sorkin's writing.

[jasonmichel]

It will be fascinating if we find that JBP was also involved in the writing of a section of In Dead of Night. Keep digging Jason!

It was H G Wells whose story was taken for DON, not JBP. Sorry Tony!
But I believe that Wells was a great influence on Priestley. Both men obsessed with time.
Indeed, JB Priestley described him as "a man whose word was light in a thousand dark places".

[Hurlyburly]

I shall give this a watch tonight as it arrived in my lovefilm bundle. WIll write a little review either tonight or tomorrow.

[Hurlyburly]

I watched this film last night.. WOW! How incredibly ahead of its time in many ways.

The ITALDian theme becomes apparent very quickly as Deja Vu, Precognition, Time dilation and many other ITALDian related concepts are discussed and explored. The style of the film itself is very engaging to watch as it explores many different stories within a story . This style of film-making has influenced many including Woody Allen, parts of this film reminded me of Deconstructing Harry because of the reasons mentioned.

The ventriloquist (Daemon?) story was indeed quite spooky. I think anything involving talking dolls gives people the chills, this may have gone on to influence films such as Child's Play. The conflict between open mindedness and the need for Scientific proof is acted out nicely by very different characters. The Dr being the voice of (scientific) reason, is the last to be convinced by the party of strange stories and experiences.

This film is also extremely funny in places. I think the Mirror story has a moment where the women turns to the man and says "Shall we dress up and spend lots of money?" Not necessarily hysterical but the delivery is perfect! There are also several other very funny moments in this film. I shall definately buy a copy soon and give it a second watch. Even the Golf story has CGI in it! Special effects in 1945?!!!??! Hitler may not even be dead yet and they're using special effects!!!! Incredible!!!!

The film ends or continues it's loop in a similar way to many other ITLADian films such as 12 Monkeys. The precognitions have been correct and his fate is unavoidable. There is a very nice touch at the end where he flips a coin in order to determine if he should go to the house or not, when the coin shows he shouldn't he ignores this and decides to go anyway illustrating an overwhelming force dictating his destiny.

A very impressive film for its time, both from an ITALDian perspective and just from the love of film/story telling.

Thanks for the recommendation.