Night Must Fall (1937)

Night Must Fall
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Written by John Van Druten from a play by Emlyn Williams
1937/US
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Olivia Grayne: Well, here we all are perfectly ordinary English people. We woke up this morning thinking, hmmm, here’s another day. We got up, looked at the weather, talked… Here we all are still talking and… all the time…all the time there may be something lying in the woods, hidden under a bush… with two feet showing, perhaps a high heel catching the sunlight with a bird perched on the end of it, and the other, the other stockinged foot with blood that’s dried on the stocking… and somewhere, somewhere there’s a man walking about and talking just like us, and he got up in the morning, and he looked at the world… and he killed her.

This well-acted atmospheric thriller goes directly on to my Best New to Me Films of 2022 list.

Olivia Grayne (Rosalind Russell) is sexually repressed and penniless, but smart.  She lives with her wealthy aunt Mrs. Bramson (Dame May Whitty) who treats her the same way she does all her servants – badly.  One of the servants is engaged to Danny (Robert Montgomery), who works at the local inn.  She asks the old lady to speak to him in an effort to speed up the wedding day.

On the same day the quiet of the English countryside is disturbed by the discovery of a decapitated female murder victim on Mrs. Bramson’s property.

Danny arrives and promptly charms the socks off Mrs. Bramson with his Irish charm and good looks.  He becomes her companion and confidante.  Olivia can’t put her finger on it but knows there is something “off” about him.  She says he seems to be acting all the time.  On the other hand, his animal magnetism is drawing her in.  I’ll stop here except to say the suspense just builds and builds.

Robert Montgomery is a favorite of mine and this has got to be one of his finest performances.  Pre-code he always plays the charming young man who doesn’t get the girl but looks swell in a tuxedo.  This, on the other hand, is quite a nuanced performance requiring him to be charming, humble, and very creepy all at the same time.  Russell and Whitty are fantastic.  Highly recommended.