Such a frustrating disappointment

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Tough and dogged detective George Raft investigates a composer's death. It was ruled a suicide but Raft doesn't buy it. Despite being ordered off the case, he continues to look into it and tracks down some of the women the composer had "relationships" with.George Raft gets a lot of flack for being stiff or playing the same role over and over, but I happen to like most of his movies that I've seen. He had no pretenses about being a Shakespearean actor. He knew what he was good at playing and worked with it quite well. His earlier WB successes in gangster movies and the like were always fun. Here he's playing a film noir detective, which isn't too far removed from those older roles come to think of it. He's quick with a snappy comeback and doesn't back down from anybody. It's a part Raft plays with ease but that shouldn't be taken as a put-down, as is often the case. Several tough female roles in this one. Lynn Bari and Virginia Huston (in her film debut) get the juiciest parts but honorable mentions should go to Myrna Dell as a wisecracking maid and Mabel Paige as Raft's mom, who helps him with his investigation.Good script with some punchy noir lines, interesting characters, and a good ending. A nice fight scene, too. By the way, the film's title refers to the song the composer writes for his latest conquest. The guy wrote songs for all the women he screwed. They had a classier kind of douchebag in the old days, I guess.

Watching George Raft and Mabel Page was like catching an episode of Burns and Allen. He was the straight man for Mabels witty quips. Can't help thinking, though, that Raft was too straight...like a wooden plank.Someone else, like Scott Brady or his brother Lawrence Tierney might have given the job a much needed shot in the arm.The music was an excellent tribute to the late forties, as was the piano playing, but it indeed sounded odd coming out of a spinet...actually the entire scoring struck a good balance between the usual frantic (read, loud) filler that many noirs think they need, and the drab monotone that still other noirs feel they need.Lynn Bari looked and sounded good (great voice) and Myrna Dell did a good Myrna Dell. What struck me was why did no one see that facially, Virginia Huston was a dead ringer for Carole Lombard. Someone should have taken that and run with it. Just four years after her tragic early death, Huston could have been groomed to play a lot of similar characters that Lombard was known for. I think she had the acting chops to do it.

NOCTURNE is a little-known film noir about an offbeat detective investigating the apparent suicide of a piano player who finds himself drawn into a world of seductive femme fatales. To be fair, the plot is extremely ordinary and matter-of-fact, but the stylish direction and some winning performances help to lift it at times.NOCTURNE peaks early with an absolutely brilliant opening sequence which has style to spare and which ends with a exceptional twist. Nothing that comes after can top that, sadly, but some witty, sharp-edged dialogue helps to propel the at-times-boring narrative along. The biggest downfall is the saggy middle, in which the detective interviews various women without getting anywhere, but it does pick up for the mildly exciting climax.I really enjoyed George Raft's laconic turn as the protagonist; despite being a detective employed by the local police department, he feels like the typical gumshoe with a ready wisecrack for any situation. The female cast are attractive and alluring, and prove equally sharp-witted when the need arises. NOCTURNE's mid-section is just too sluggish to be able to rate this as a good film, but it's worth tracking down as a rarity that passes the time adequately enough.

This little "film noir" seems to have it's mind on witty dialog rather than sensible plot line. George Raft plays a junior partner Detective who sees murder when his partner lazily sees suicide. He pursues the case, because it haunts him, but are never told why. He focuses in on one woman, who, as in most of these kinds of movie, is meant to make us wonder whether she's evil or innocent. Of course he falls for her, but being Dudley Do Right, the "case must be solved." SPOILER. Plot problems. For example our intrepid Det. manages to track down 9 women in 2 days, with only a photograph and no first or last names! The answer is revealed later in the movie but in the wrong time line: He finds the women, then we see him finding the photographer's studio name on the photograph. We keep being told that the method of making the murder look like suicide is "mysterious" when any kid could figure an obvious way immediately (shoot the guy close up and wrap his fingers around gun). The method when it is revealed is interesting but as another obvious way is already there it doesn't come as a "aha!" moment.When an obvious suspect is revealed by her facial expression when the "Nocturne" is played, the audience sees it right away but our dufus Det. doesn't. So now the audience knows and watches dufus wander around looking for the wrong suspect. Was this deliberate?A main character is a big hulk that follows Raft around for most of the day, and it takes that long for Raft to see him, when the audience has him pegged right away. It is never explained why he does what he does, other than that he is a sidekick to the eventually revealed killer. SPOILER ENDRaft is his usual wooden self, and he has a nice way with lines. He lives with his mother in an interesting side story that could have been used to tell us more about why Raft's character is so close to the edge.