Absolutely the worst movie.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The interesting thing about this film is that you as the audience get to experience the anguish, horror and despair of a somnambulist who can't control her state. Of course, things don't get better by others taking advantage of her vulnerability, while the painfulness of the situation is brought to extremes by her never seeing through the manipulations of the intrigue-makers around her. Mark the photographer well (George Coulouris), His small part is the most important in the film, as everything depends on his actions. Claudette Colbert enacts the victim with acute excellence, making the horror of her state and situation really convincing, credible and realistic. Robert Cummings always brings a relief. He always makes such characters.Douglas Sirk made his best films in the 40s sticking to the noirs, while in the 50s with the advent of colour he grew more sentimental and syrupy with a penchant for schmalz, but in the 40s he was one of the best.

Alison Courtland (Claudette Colbert) wakes up in the middle of the night on a speeding train, she has no idea how she got there... Staring Claudette Colbert, Robert Cummings, Don Ameche, George Coulouris, with support coming from Rita Johnson & Raymond Burr. Directed by Douglas Sirk, adapted by St. Clair McKelway (Cy Endfield & Decla Dunning uncredited) from a novel by Leo Rosten, scored by Rudy Schrager and Joseph Valentine provides the cinematography. Practically brushed aside by its director, pulled from pillar to post by the genre assignment police, and called everything from a woman's melodrama to a psychological film noir, Sleep, My Love is a film that one could easily be led to believe is just not very good, or at best, confusing. Nether of the last two statements apply as far as I'm concerned. Firstly it has to be said (since every amateur reviewer in the land has done thus far) this is closer to the likes of Gaslight (Re: Thornton Square et al) than any femme/homme fatale driven piece of cinema. Secondly it should be noted that it's no surprise Sirk turned his nose up at the finished film, because it's a far cry from the "woman's" pictures that would make and solidify his career. What we get is a tight, if formulaic, story, that is mostly acted competently and is filmed quite excellently with an expressionistic bent by Valentine. Very early on in the piece we are privy to just what is going on, something that those who crave a mystery element may find an irritation. But here's the thing, the atmospherics on offer are enough to carry the viewer through to the finale, where, we await the outcome of the villainous dalliances that have made up the plot. Along the way we have been treated to a number of potent scenes, such as the rushing train opener and a balcony hold your breath moment. Then there's the house itself, wonderfully moody with its looming staircase, it's constantly swathed in shadows as Valentine utilises it to the maximum to make it an imposing character all by itself. In fact fans of shadow play should love the goods here since the film is 98% filmed with shadows. There's some issues (naturally). Ameche is weak as the treacherous husband, and when one finds that the hulking and deathly sullen eyed Burr is underused, one can't help think that the film would have greatly benefited from those two swapping roles. Hazel Brooks as the "other woman" is also badly underused, an annoyance since what little we do get hints at a sizzling and murky affair that begged to be fleshed out more in the noir tradition. And boy what a pair of legs did our Hazel possess!It's a damn fine film in spite of the little itches, one that deserves a bit more support than it actually gets. As for what genre it does belong to? Well psychological melodrama filmed in a film noir style sits about right one feels. 7.5/10

There are overtones of "Gaslight" in this watchable little movie from 1948 in that it has the same plot -that of a husband trying to persuade his wife that she is going mad .It sets its story in a then contemporary USA rather than foggy London town in the era of hansom cabs and cobbled streets. The husband is Richard Courtland (Don Ameche) who wishes to get his paws on his wife Alison 's inheritance in order that he can then marry his mistress ,the delectable Daphne ( Hazel Brooks)/the wife is played by Claudette Colbert. To this end he is covertly administering hypnotic drugs. The movie opens with Alison on a train and not knowing how she got there.Later she tries to jump from a balcony with no apparent motive for her actions and the movie builds to a neat and edgy climax on the Brooklyn Bridge .Out to stop the husband's evil machinations is "Bruce Eliot" played by Robert Cummins Supporting roles are in the capable hands of such performers as George colouris (playing a phoney shrink),Raymond Burr as a sceptical policeman and such adroit bit part players as Ralph Morgan and Keye Luke .They indeed ,outshine the leads who are all adequate but slightly miscast and playing against type The plot is predictable but Douglas Sirk does a good job of building suspense with some deft Hitchcockian touches

Sleep, My Love is Douglas Sirk's crack at Gaslight. Dabbling in drugs and Mesmerism, Don Ameche rigs up psychotic "episodes" starring his wife, Claudette Colbert, so he can inherit her money. Befriended by Robert Cummings during one of these arranged "fugue" states, she unwittingly enlists an ally whose affections, and suspicions, grow. (The film takes on inadvertent Charlie Chan overtones when Cummings goes sleuthing with his blood-brother Keye Luke, who often played the Honolulu detective's eldest offspring.)Unlike Cukor's claustrophobic Gaslight, with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, Sleep, My Love is less psychologically nuanced and more plot-driven. It benefits from Hazel Brooks, delivering an icily stylized vamp turn as The Other Woman; she appeared in one other noir, Body and Soul, during her disappointing brief career. George Couloris (the guardian in Citizen Kane) adds color as a confederate of Ameche's, while Raymond Burr is wasted as a minion of the law.That leaves the three principals as well as some problems. The amicable Ameche can't summon up the cold, controlling menace that Boyer spread through Gaslight; his adversary, the equally amicable Cummings, succumbs to terminal blandness. Colbert is more problematic. Unlike the languorous, instinctive Bergman, she made her name in part due to her quick wits; you can't buy her as a submissive wifey who hasn't cottoned on to her husband's philandering -- at the very least -- without having it spelled out to her by Cummings, whose acumen seems as low-wattage as his star power. (On the other hand, she was to find herself in a similar pickle the next year in The Secret Fury.) Sirk's direction here, as in Lured, lacks the distinctiveness he showed in his other noir, Shockproof, and was to develop lushly in the haut-fifties melodramas like Written on the Wind for which he is justly renowned.