Night Must Fall

A rare case of both an original film and its remake both included in this collection (another example is The Killers, filmed in both 1946 and 1964), Karel Reisz’ Night Must Fall is a very late noir variation on Richard Thorpe’s 1937 proto-noir of the same name. Starring a boyish Albert Finney as Danny, the psychopath who charms his way into the household of dowager Mrs. Bramson (Mona Washbourne), Finney brings a more deranged, post-Psycho attitude to the role than Robert Montgomery could ever have gotten away with in the 1930’s, Finney’s transformation a master class of acting culminating in an explosive final act. Originally performed by Rosalind Russell, Mrs. Bramson’s daughter Olivia (Susan Hampshire) is suspicious of Danny’s friendship with her mother from the start, but she too is drawn in by his blithe spirit and mysterious mind. Reisz creates a tone of creepy dissonance, opening the film with a hatchet murder in the woods, immediately followed by immersion in a quiet countryside and quaint household, Danny’s games with the female inhabitants morphing from playful to silly to weird to psychotic over time. Acclaimed cinematographer Freddie Francis had also just begun his directorial career during this period, having already made Paranoiac (1963) and Nightmare (1964) by this time.