Clash by Night

It starts out slow, for about the first half hour or so, and it just ends so abruptly with what feels like a terribly tacked on happy-go-lucky ending but it's still a very enjoyable watch due to it's exploration of human relations during the moments in between.

It's alright, but calling it noir is a real stretch. There are worse ways to spend an hour forty-five, but this left no lasting impression on me. Barbara Stanwyck is quality as usual, though.

Good acting, but the film just never seems to really take off. Even the ending is kind of abrupt, with no real resolution to any of the characters whatsoever.

Terrific dialogue, good performances, and a boiling love triangle. But it's not noir, at least not in my. The noir I like requires high stakes: someone's going to get killed, or going to jail for a long, long time. Some might argue that love is the highest stake of all, and some of the best noirs use love as a lynchpin, but for me there has to be more than just romance on the line. So it's not film noir, but it's still pretty good. Except for the ending, which comes far, far too easily.

Surprisingly raw love affair, with a good guy trapped in the middle of two selfish individuals excellently played by Barbara Stanwyck & Robert Ryan. While the story isn't that original, the human behavior of the characters makes it all come alive in a special way. Oh, and Marilyn Monroe was very much present, being part of a bitter and dizzy cocktail.

I generally liked this slow-burner drama which has a few long talky sequences that make you realize it came from a play. I'm not sure I buy into the ending, which might have been another Lang had to "Hollywood-ize." I do confess to being distracted by how many half-smoked cigarettes Stanwyck tosses away, and how many times they ask for silence for the baby and then spend another ten minutes shouting at each other. Not a classic, but some good performances.

So I kind of liked the ending, not because it simply ties everything together, but because it posits that either way she goes she will be unhappy. Or at least she won't find what she's looking for. But, to me, it's in the giving up of that "ideal" that she finds the true path. I also think the film does a good job setting that up, as she throws herself into her marriage and seems genuinely distraught as things turn. Lang's camera is always interesting as well--some great shots here.

Well acted and a deep character exploration of the female side of noir. It flips the script and has the female protagonist choosing between the good guy and the malefatle. It often feels like a stage play and the main draw is the script and performances. I personally look for more pulp and genre esthetics in my noir, so Clash by Night didn't connect with me. As a warning, there are some pretty blatant Chinese racial jokes.

Solid noir, good cast, and Stanwyck is, as expected, terrific ("Save your money--hard times are coming."). As one never susceptible to her, um, charms, this is the first Monroe performance I've seen--for which I credit Lang--where I realized she really could have been something with some actual discipline. Contains one of the best dialogue exchanges in all film noir: Robert Ryan: "I need a drink. What do you need, Miss Doyle?" Barbara Stanwyck: (after a beat) "Well, let's *say* a drink..."

I didn't get much out of this, found the people unlikable and both the plot and the dialog mannered and artificial. You could definitely tell this was taken from a play.

Less a noir than a Tennessee Williamsesque play covered in shadows, Lang's Clash by Night is a fatalistic take on the nature of relationships - they end in a lot of heartbreak and devastation. Pretty accurate. The performances are superb, and the drama is high.

Clash By Night, a melodrama that borrows more from film noir than it becomes one, sharply denotes how some forlorn everymen break out from their indistinct reality, as if that cloudiness were a confinement where endurance at any sacrifice is the bottom line.

VOTE COTTEN

a very good how-i-met-your-mother story, albeit they should've cut down on the wordy monologues.

Nice take on women's condition in society. Stanwick is just as glamorously hardboiled as i expected her to be. Ms Monroe is surprisingly welcome in the mix, as a polar version to Stanwick. Still, the acting as a whole is a bit too theatrical and moralising for my tastebuds.

Good film made great by that final act, which while superficially simple is an emotionally complex and thematically consistent conclusion to Mae's struggles with identity and freedom. All the performances here are top notch, and all 5 main characters provide different perspectives on the changing attitudes towards women's rights, with a couple of bonus moments from the replant uncle.

Lang takes a fairly traditional approach to structuring shots. This sometimes makes the film a little stiff, but it also achieves the opposite. Several scenes play out with Lang setting his camera in one corner of the set and just panning and pivoting to take in the shifting action, giving the moments he cuts and zooms in more authority. Stanwyck is characteristically terrific, and there's a nice supporting turn by Monroe. Best of all is Douglas, a fine character actor taken through the wringer.

Good movie about passion and desire, with particularly powerful performances by Stanwyck and Ryan.

A noir melodrama on the battle of the sexes, directed with visual restraint but performed in bold gestures. That is, it's a little stagey, but the cast is pretty excellent. In particular, this stands out as one of Monroe's best efforts.

Although she's sporting the most appalling haircut of her film career (think Ethel Mertz crossed with yr grandma), Barbara Stanwyck turns in another stunning performance as a fickle slut who walks her own path quote unquote. The movie's a half-hour too long, but Robert Ryan is a joy to watch in his surly magnificence and Marilyn Monroe (in her first major role) is bimbo autism at its finest. Grade is for the first 75 minutes only