The Big Night (1951 film)

For other uses, see Big Night (disambiguation) and The Big Night (disambiguation).

The Big Night
Theatrical release lobby card
Directed by	Joseph Losey
Screenplay by	Joseph Losey Stanley Ellin Hugo Butler Ring Lardner, Jr.
Based on	the novel Dreadful Summit by Stanley Ellin
Produced by	Philip A. Waxman
Starring	John Barrymore, Jr. Preston Foster Joan Lorring
Cinematography	Hal Mohr
Edited by	Edward Mann
Music by	Lyn Murray
Production company	Philip A. Waxman Productions
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	November 1, 1951 (1951-11-01)(Los Angeles) [1]
Running time	75 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$300,000 [2]

The Big Night is a 1951 American film noir directed by Joseph Losey and starring Preston Foster, Joan Lorring and John Drew Barrymore (billed as John Barrymore, Jr.) in his first starring role. The fi;m is based on a script written by Joseph Losey and Stanley Ellin, based on Ellin's 1948 novel Dreadful Summit. Hugo Butler and Ring Lardner Jr. also contributed to the screenplay, but both men were admitted communists, and following Lardner's conviction for contempt of Congress, they were uncredited when the film was first released. ^{[3] [4] [5]}

Plot

On his 17th birthday, shy and bespectacled George LaMain is a witness to his father Andy's savage beating at the hands of influential sports columnist Al Judge while at Andy's bar. George does not understand why his father had knelt in front of Judge in passive compliance before the beating began, but he takes Andy's gun and leaves.

With no clear direction, George begins a night journey, first watching a boxing match that he and his father were planning to attend to celebrate his birthday, hoping that he will find Judge there. At the arena, George sells his father's ticket but is accused of scalping by a con man posing as a police officer, who takes the ticket money. Inside the arena, the man who bought the ticket, journalism teacher Professor Cooper, explains what happened and shares his disdain for Judge.

Cooper takes George to one of Judge's haunts, where George encounters the con man who had robbed him and wins a fight with him. At another club, he meets Cooper's girlfriend Julie and takes his first drink. At Julie's apartment, George wakes to find that Julie's sister Marion has been watching him. She expresses sympathy and concern for him and they kiss, but George reacts with hostility and leaves when he finds that Marion had tried to hide his gun.

George finds Judge's address and goes there to confront him. Facing George's gun, Judge explains that he had punished Andy because Judge's sister Frances had killed herself when Andy refused to marry her. The men fight and Judge is shot. George seeks shelter with Marion and Cooper, but when he returns to the bar, he sees that the police have come to arrest his father for Judge's shooting. Afraid, confused and still holding the gun, George confesses but learns that Judge was only wounded. His father explains that he had not been able to marry Frances because he was still married to George's mother, who had fled with another man. He persuades George to surrender the gun and they are taken away by the police.

Cast

• John Barrymore, Jr. as George La Main
• Preston Foster as Andy La Main
• Joan Lorring as Marion Rostina
• Howard St. John as Al Judge
• Dorothy Comingore as Julie Rostina
• Philip Bourneuf as Dr. Lloyd Cooper
• Howland Chamberlin as Flanagan
• Myron Healey as Patrolman Kennealy
• Emile Meyer as Peckinpaugh (credited as Emil Meyer)
• Mauri Leighton as Terry Angelus
• Robert Aldrich as Man at Fights (uncredited)

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times , critic Bosley Crowther called the film "a bleakly pretentious melodrama" and wrote: "Not only is the story presumptuous and contrived, without any clarification of character or theme, but it is directed by Joseph Losey in a provokingly ostentatious style and it is played by a cast of professionals as though it were an exercise at dramatic school. ... Apparently everybody was concerned with theatrical effects and forgot all about a story with point and intelligence." ^[6]

Critic Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "The whole business is keyed to notes of such bizarre brutality ... that I never felt any real wrench of pity for the kid. Losey and writer Stanley Ellin seem to have aimed for a kind of half-world 'Winterset'—and, this time, missed." ^[1]

References

1. Scheuer, Philip K. (1951-11-02). "Yvonne De Carlo Stars as Desert Femme Fatale". Los Angeles Times . p. 8, Part III.
2. Caute, David (1994). Joseph Losey. Oxford University Press. p. 95. ISBN   978-0-19-506410-0.
3. The Big Night at the TCM Movie Database.
4. Palmer and Riley, 1993, p. 157: Filmography
5. Hirsch, 1980, p. 233–234: Filmography
6. Crowther, Bosley (1952-03-20). "The Screen in Review: 'The Big Night' and 'Mutiny' Are Shown Jointly at Loew Neighborhood Theatres". The New York Times . p. 37.

Sources

• Callahan, Dan. 2003. Losey, Joseph. Senses of Cinema, March 2003. Great Directors Issue 25. https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/losey/#:~:text=The%20dominant%20themes%20of%20Losey's,love%20story%20in%20his%20films. Accessed October 12, 2024.
• Hirsch, Foster. 1980. Joseph Losey. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers. ISBN   0-8057-9257-0
• Palmer, James; Riley, Michael. 1993. The Films of Joseph Losey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-38386-2

External links

• The Big Night at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• The Big Night at IMDb