Review of Fear in the Night (1947) by Dr. J — 12 Mar 2012

"It seemed as if my brain was handcuffed".

A young DeForest Kelley (looking remarkably like the comedian Stewart Lee) dreams that he stabs someone in an octagonal mirrored room then stuffs the body in a cupboard. When he awakes he finds the key to the cupboard and a button he dreamt he lost in the struggle in his pocket. What the dickens is going on? A pretty good noir which mostly manages to hide the fact that it was filmed on a micro-budget. It's lifted above the ordinary by a decent script based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich which retains a lot of Woolrich's snappy dialogue. DeForest Fruits wasn't much of an actor though. Damn it Spock!