Review of Clash by Night (1952) by Daniel M — 27 Nov 2008

One of the most emotionally tense films I've ever seen; based on a Clifford Odets play, it inhabits an odd territory somewhere between Douglas Sirk and Emile Zola. What makes the film so remarkable is that all the characters, the heroine included, are flawed (if not doomed), and in the end it amounts to a quite bleak vision of the modest, perfectly reasonable ambitions of working-class people in a small town.

Barbara Stanwyck is very, very good in her role, but Robert Ryan's tortured, sadistic film projectionist steals the show (and, for a while, Stanwyck).