Night Editor
Directed by Henry Levin
Written by Harold Jacob Smith from a story by Scott Littleton and a radio program by Hal Burdick
1946/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Jill Merrill: I don’t need you, I can buy and sell you. I don’t know why I bother seeing you.
Tony Cochrane: You don’t know why? I’ll tell you. You’re rotten through and through. Like something they serve at the Ritz,only its been laying out in the sun too long.[/box]
This was a fun pulpy film noir but what was it with the ending?
A reporter stumbles into his office, late, drunk and unable to go home. The editor and some other reporters are playing poker. The editor takes up the cautionary tale of homicide detective Tony Cochrane.
It seems that Cochrane (William Gargan) was a crack detective and devoted family man, especially close to his little son. That all changed when he fell prey to socialite Jill Merrill (Janis Carter) and began an adulterous affair, from which he seems powerless to extricate himself. While Cochrane and Jill are smooching on an isolated lover’s lane, they witness a man beating a girl to death in a car with a tire iron. Cochrane is prevented by Jill, who fears publicity, and his own cowardice re his wife from going to the victim’s aid or investigating. Jill opines that the girl probably deserved what she got anyway. Naturally, Cochrane is assigned to the homicide investigation.
Unfortunately, Cochrane’s car left a tire print at the scene of the crime which he feels compelled to destroy, further implicating him in the crime. But he doggedly pursues his leads even when they take him deep into Jill’s social circle. There is really only one possible outcome. I will leave it to viewers to see how the film gets there.
OK, so we know that under the Hayes Code adultery cannot pay. I was not prepared for the sheer audaciousness of the ending though! Another given of the period is that in any adulterous relationship the woman must be evil personified and the man her hapless dupe. Janis Carter may not be the world’s greatest actress but she does make a really wicked femme fatale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1aZCcSc8Sw
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