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The Long Night | 
 enlarge | Director: Anatole Litvak
Actors: Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes, Vincent Price, Ann Dvorak, Howard Freeman
Studio: Kino Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $14.88
You Save: $15.07 (50%)
New (22) Used (7) from $14.88
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 100117
Format: Black & White, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 97
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5 x 0.6
MPN: 1562
ISBN: 6305950687
UPC: 738329015626
EAN: 9786305950684
Theatrical Release Date: May 28, 1947
Release Date: July 18, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW AND FACTORY SEALED
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 What happened to you, Joe? September 5, 2005
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
A gunshot rings out as a blind man (Elisha Cook, Jr.) tap-tap-taps his way up a flight of stairs in an apartment building. A well-dressed and well-wounded man tumbles out of a third floor apartment and rolls down the stairs. THE LONG NIGHT begins where most crime thrillers end - with a murder - and through a series of flashbacks it unravels and reveals its story. Henry Fonda plays an Average Joe conveniently named Joe Adams who has an average girlfriend named Jo Ann, played with sweet innocence by Barbara Bel Geddes. After the smoke clears a bit we're propelled into the story proper when Joe interior monologues `How can I explain what I don't understand myself?' In 1947 even a war vet (looks like Joe was a sergeant in the infantry) couldn't growl a `Get away from here and leave me alone!' to a hallway full of police without expecting a bit of tommy gun and sniper fire. Director Anatole Litvak will bring us back to Joe's bullet ridden apartment now and then for a cigarette until a photograph or a stuffed bear trigger yet another flashback.
Chain smoking and brooding doesn't seem to help clarify things much for Joe, but the movie is conventional enough. Joe returns from the war and gets a job as a sand-blaster in an unnamed, heavy industry town somewhere in Pennsylvania. Litvak hints a bit about the edges that THE LONG NIGHT is a story about class in America, but that aspect of the movie is never developed. Joe's a regular working man with modest, if any, dreams when he meets Jo Ann. Their sweet twosome develops into a suspicion filled ménage à trois with the appearance of Vincent Price, a traveling magician with a dog act and a sharp-talking assistant played by Ann Dvorak. Price's Maximilian hides his demented self behind a glib air of sophistication and faux refinement. In short, he dazzles the naïve Jo Ann, who properly enough knew him before she met Joe. For a while Ann Dvorak's Charlene, one of those tough-talking dames with a heart of gold, threatens to turn THE LONG NIGHT into a messy ménage à quatre. Fortunately, though, this movie and the French film it was based on, 1939's LE JOUR SE LÈVE, keep things on track. Tragedy or redemption will be realized through Joe and Jo Ann.
The Kino disk has a nice text/film clips set of extras. One feature goes into a great bit of detail on Eugène Lourié's set design, and another highlights the similarities between the American movie and the French one that influenced it. The print shows a little bit of un-restored wear. It's bad enough to distract the purists but it wasn't so bad that it pulled me out of the movie. The movie itself was okay. Even without learning about the miniature sets, forced perspectives, and suchlike the movie would still look like it was shot on a big soundstage and after a while it made me feel a little claustrophobic. Even though I think Price injected the right amount of slightly hammy menace his character and the movie called for, Maximilian was a little preposterous. Without him, for - or maybe because of - all of Fonda's earnestness and Bel Geddes' little girl charms this one would have been edging on the dreadful.
The Long Night September 30, 2002
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This was a very cool film. Henry Fonda did an excellent job as a man who is hiding from the law. Vincent Price plays the guy that gets killed by Henry Fonda at the very beginning. Almost the entire film is flashback, which explain why Fonda is in this predicament in the first place, and how it came to be that he killed Price. A great suspense movie.
1947 FORGOTTEN NOIR GEM January 2, 2002
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
Henry Fonda is Joe Adams, a man pinned inside his third floor apartment after gunning down a mysterious magician Vincent price. Joe's fractured memories are told in an intricate web of flashbacks that reconstruct the events leading up to the murder. Barbara Bel Geddes plays the third corner of the tragic, complicated and mesmerizing love triangle. Exceedingly mody and atmospheric direction by the masterful Anatole Litvak ("The Snake Pit," "Sorry Wrong Number"). The DVD is a pristine transfer made from a 35 MM nitrate negative. Bonus material includes a gallery of photos and artwork as well as excerpts from Marcel Carne's Le Jour se Leve. (Full Frame, B&W, 68 minutes, Not Rated)
the long night January 4, 2001
8 out of 15 found this review helpful
It is wonderful to discover forgotten gems and this is such a title. Too bad the producers, Kino Video, could have taken time to produce better sound. On Chapters #5 & #16 the sound cuts out on front speakers when using surround sound and comes only from the back. Very annoying. Kino Video offer a disclaimer sayin thisis due to the age of the film....bull. It is due to someone cutting out the sound when the film was being reproduced. I hope others will take time to write Kino Video...someone should be horsewhipped. Otherwise the picture quality is super.
 Good story, GREAT PHOTOGRAPHY September 13, 2000
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
A simple, tightly-told story with amazing art direction, sets and photography. Effective, hammy acting all around adds to the mix to make a very enjoyable short movie. The disc supplements are an entertaining and informative icing on the cake.
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