Thanks for the memories!

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The title of Fritz Lang's Clash by Night and its placement in his filmography might lead you to expect a film noir, and a couple of its characters (played by Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan) express themselves almost entirely through noir-soaked barbs and aphorisms, reflecting the tortured worldviews beneath. But they're heavily displaced from noir territory (Ryan's character works as a projectionist, a neat evocation of such displacement), set down in a fishing village, both reeling from recent bumpy emotional rides. The film starts by immersing us in the ships, the unloading of the catch, the processing, the surrounding culture, and never loses its sense of that setting; at other times, in its growing sense of domesticity as prison and in the expressiveness of its interiors, it feels like Douglas Sirk as much as Lang. Despite her better judgment, Stanwyck's May gives in to the pursuit of fishing captain Jerry (Paul Douglas), a man too decently straightforward to arouse her interest, and tries to make it as a wife and mother; it's inevitable that his self-loathing friend Earl (Ryan) will eventually constitute a more interesting proposition. The movie teems with portrayals of flawed masculinity - old drunks, younger men with overly fixed ideas about what they expect of their women; it also has Marilyn Monroe as Stanwyck's main female confidant, astute enough to see her point of view, but not to avoid similar traps. Whether one categorizes it as noir or domestic melodrama or an amalgam of both, it's a compellingly articulated study, with a "happy" ending (at least in the sense that it tends to the imperatives of domesticity and continuity over those of uncertain desire) so compromised and understated that it allows no clear winners. In this sense, as in Lang's greatest films, the implications run wide and deep, to a clash and a night that may never end.

It's the Dialog that Tempts some Non-Discerning Critics and DVD Package Marketers to want to Force this into the Always Subjective Film-Noir Genre, and maybe the Lurid Situation of Extramarital Sex. This Movie is Restlessly Comfortable alongside Pure Noir.Considering the Cast, Director, and Source Material the Benefit of the Doubt is Easy. A more apt Description would be a Salty Melodramatic Soap. The Snap-Pat never lets up and Navigates this along the Rough Seas Constantly Slamming the shore. It's a Pretty Place to Live but some People hardly call it Living.Therein lies the Tension and most of it is Sexual. Domestic Bliss, the Script seems to be Saying is more a state of Mind than an Actual Reality. While most Folks in the Post War Years were trying to "Fit-In", Not Worry, and be Happy, it quite often was more of a Surrender than a Victory.The Film is Above Average but Never Attains Classic or Great Status. Mostly because it is so Heavily Worded that it Belonged more on the Stage than on Film, and in the End it Shows.

Fritz Lang, the German director who emigrated to Hollywood, is famous for Metropolis, one of the most original films of all time, and also one of the most atrociously acted. Lang had guts--let's give him his due!--and wasn't afraid to deal with lust and sex in a way more conventional studio directors avoided. However, everything he chose to touch upon, he eventually hammered down with his notorious heavy-hand. Everything here is over-done, exaggerated, spelled-out twice. Marilyn Monroe, who had only to walk in front of the camera to be erotic, wiggles and contorts her body in a way equal to the metal robot in Metropolis. A parody of sex rather than a portrait.

A hardened woman returns home to a fishing village only to be caught between two men.At least the movie has Andes and Monroe whose characters come across as refreshingly natural, along with revealing stock footage of the fishing industry. However, the rest of the film is pitched about ten decibels over the top, with all the subtlety of a hammer blow. Douglas's Jerry is not just a nice guy, he's a rub-your-nose-in-it Nice Guy. Similarly for Ryan's cynical Earl and Stanwyck's hard case Mae. Not even such first-rate performers as these can overcome the relentlessly overblown dialog or stagy sets. Nor does it appear the three were allowed to shade their performances beyond one-dimensional caricature. At the same time, the symbolism of roiling seas and surging tide is about as necessary as gravy on soup. In short, the movie amounts to a textbook exercise of heavy-handed histrionics and too much talk, Fritz Lang or no Fritz Lang.I expect other reviewers are right about the material being shaped for 1950's audiences. In those days, one way of getting people away from TV was to promise them titillation since there was none on TV. But then producers faced the problem of Production Code limits on what could be shown or said on screen, especially in the way of sex. Thus, the emphasis in the film is on the atmospherics of desire instead of anything more literal. This results in a movie that, unfortunately, drowns in an overlay of heavy breathing, standard innuendo, and redundant symbolism. Such may have titillated audiences then; now there's just a dreary sameness in the repetition. At the same time, that turnaround ending shouldn't be overlooked. Unhappily, it's of the same Code-compromised sort that damaged more 50's movies than just this one.I guess my biggest regret is how the movie takes three of Hollywood's most capable actors and reduces them to near-caricature of their usual screen persona, Douglas and Ryan, especially. Here's hoping they were at least well paid.