Night Into Morning (1951)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Ray Milland had plenty of experience coming off as a drunkard in this 1951 film from his 1945 Oscar winning performance in "The Lost Weekend."As an English professor, College secretary Nancy Davis, runs in to inform him in front of the class that his house exploded. Of course, in this type of situation, he would have been called out privately. He is devastated by the loss of child and his wife.Milland is again terrific as always. While he descends into heavy drinking, he is still able to maintain his position, though he becomes an embittered and quite nasty at times. As the secretary who is sympathetic to his plight, because she lost her husband to World War 11, Nancy Davis is marvelous here and it's probably by far the best performance she has given on screen. John Hodiak plays a member of the faculty who is involved with Davis, but feels threatened by her overly sympathetic embrace of the Milland character.It is only when he is involved in a car accident helped by his not being sober does Milland come to grips with the problem and speaks in a memorable way to his outgoing class at term's end.

Wow, what a surprise this movie was for me!! I did it mainly to see another example of Nancy Davis's acting ability. Until now, I had only seen her in fairly limited roles in The Next Voice You Hear... (1950) and It's A Big Country(1951). I was not only impressed with her totally natural acting but was pleasantly surprised by this movie itself. I had never heard of it before. Perhaps I have seen The Lost Weekend (1945) too many times; but with Night Into Morning, I felt Milland gave a better performance as a depressed alcoholic than he did in his Oscar- winning performance in The Lost Weekend.The movie presents the story about a Berkley University English professor (Ray Milland) whose life is turned upside down when he looses his entire family because his basement furnace blows up. Suddenly, without his wife (Rosemary DeCamp) and son, he is left with a totally empty life. He copes with his emptiness by immersing himself in his work and in the bottle. Although his fellow workers and friends try to help him get his life back on track, only his fellow professor's fiancée (Nancy Davis) understands his pain, since she had been a WW II widow before remarrying the professor (John Hodiak). Her hyper-understanding of Ray Milland's character threatens her new marriage, which gives the movie yet another dimension.Other good performances in the movie are turned in by Lewis Stone, as the English Department Head, and Jean Hagen as his neighbor. Lewis Stone was a staple in the Silents early 'Talkies,' but seemed to get even better with age. Jean Hagen is the familiar character actress with the funny voice from Singin' in the Rain (1952), Adam's Rib (1949), and The Asphalt Jungle (1950).

When I first saw this with my wife, she said that Dore Shary liked to produce films to enlighten. This one should be released immediately on commercial video. A college professor (Ray Milland) loses his wife (Rosemary DeCamp) and son in a fire.He gradually starts to come apart at the seams. His actions: insomnia, drinking, mood swings, are realistically shown. Along the way, we see Nancy Davis' character, and learn that she went through the same thing. This movie contains so much, that one must watch it many times to absorb it all. How Miss Davis' character moves from attempted suicide to happiness is a story in itself.Her fiancée, as he described himself "A thick-headed Swede" is handled perfectly. Just in time, the professor is saved from committing suicide. He then moves in with his friends. The movie ends with him telling his students to "go with God". There is no happy ending. The worst may be over, though there will be many rough times ahead. At least now our protagonist knows what he is facing.WHAT A MOVIE.

RAY MILLAND is a troubled professor who seems to be wallowing in self-pity shortly after the death of his wife and son in a house fire. He begins to scare people with his brusque behavior, both in and out of the classroom. NANCY DAVIS and JOHN HODIAK are sympathetic friends who offer him loyal support--but nobody seems able to help Milland who seems to want to spend more time with the bottle than anything else.The self-pity angle goes on for too long to make Milland's character likable, although his acting is quietly underplayed and altogether believable. "I know you want to help me. Most people do, but you can't," he tells Davis who had to get over her own sense of loss in the past. Davis is full of platitudes and is almost too nice, but she too plays her role well, as does Hodiak.This goes on for the first hour and the main interest in the story is to see how and when Milland will snap out of it. Toward the end of the film he's still telling a waitress, "Find me a glass without a hole in the bottom." It takes a student athlete unable to pass one of Milland's exams that sets the plot on a final course wherein a driving accident lands him in jail and on probation. But Milland's change of heart enables him to give the flunking college student (JONATHAN COTT) another chance to pass, which he does, and he goes about setting in motion his final will, leaving his kid's bike to the boy's best friend. What happens after that, is quite predictable, but once again it's Nancy to the rescue.Honest telling of a troubling tale of a man attempting to solve his problems with alcohol. Nowhere as engaging or powerful as Milland's most famous film, THE LOST WEEKEND, but a modestly successful drama on its own merits.