Somewhere in the Night

Somewhere in the Night

12/6/1946 1h 50m 6.7/10

Overview

George Taylor returns from WWII with amnesia. Back home in Los Angeles, he tries to track down his old identity, stumbling into a 3-year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million.

Director

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Top Billed Cast

Lloyd Nolan

Lloyd Nolan

Police Lt. Donald Kendall

Richard Conte

Richard Conte

Mel Phillips

Josephine Hutchinson

Josephine Hutchinson

Elizabeth Conroy

John Hodiak

John Hodiak

George W. Taylor

Nancy Guild

Nancy Guild

Christy Smith

Fritz Kortner

Fritz Kortner

Anzelmo aka Dr. Oracle

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

5/22/2023

7/10

"Taylor" (John Hodiak) returns from a war-torn Europe after WWII disfigured and suffering from memory loss. Gradually, as his amnesia starts to fade, he recalls the name of one man who might be able to help him get back on his feet so sets off to Los Angeles to find him. Pretty quickly he discovers that this isn't going to be an easy task - and it's only after he is beaten and dumped outside the door of "Christy" (Nancy Guild) that he regales his story and then she decides to get him introduced to police lieutenant "Kendall" (Lloyd Nolan). This is where the story starts to hot up. It seems his friend ("Cravat") was caught up in what appears to be some postwar Nazi money laundering/smuggling and it's a race against time to find the cash before it's gone along with a likely murderer. The largely B-list cast all work quite well here. Nobody is trying to outshine the other and so that allows the solid story to develop and play out properly. It's not just a routine crime drama, there are a few twists and the paucity of characters on screen allows for more of them to become a little more substantial as we progress through this intriguing investigation to quite an exciting denouement. It's maybe just ten minutes too long, it takes a while to build up steam - but still, if you like the genre, it's at the better end and worth a watch.

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