Night Must Fall

For a proto-noir in 1937, Richard Thorpe’s Night Must Fall is a very dark film below the surface. There’s a force of evil in the Bramson house but it comes in the form of sweet, charming Danny (Robert Montgomery), a local boy who earns both a job from — and the devotion of — the widow Bramson (the one-of-a-kind Dame May Whitty). Mrs. Bramson’s niece and servant, the frumpy, skeptical Olivia Grayne (Rosalind Russell), is not so trusting of Danny, her doubt battling with physical attraction; when the headless body of a local woman is found buried on the premises, Olivia’s suspicions reach a boiling point, but so does her desire for the might-be killer (“You’re not frightened, you’re excited,” Danny tells her). Such psychosexual complexity is rare for a 1930’s crime film but points to the darkness and depth to come in the noir cycle. (Rosalind Russell carrying a bowling bag-sized leather case that may or may not contain a human head is a wickedly perverse sight.) Director Thorpe creates suspense through silence (the omnipresent ticking clock), snooping (the maids on the verge of being caught), and a slow pace that gives free range to Danny’s mental degradation.