SYNOPSICS
Night Editor (1946) is a English movie. Henry Levin has directed this movie. William Gargan,Janis Carter,Jeff Donnell,Coulter Irwin are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1946. Night Editor (1946) is considered one of the best Crime,Drama,Film-Noir movie in India and around the world.
"Night Editor" was based on the already existing radio program in which a newspaper editor would recount the 'inside story' of some bit newspaper story, and later became a television series: This time, a night editor of a newspaper is telling a story to a young reporter, who is neglecting his job and wife and beginning to drink too much. The story begins as a police detective, although devoted to his wife and young son, has entered into an affair with a society girl, also married, and while they are parked out in the boonies on a lonely road, they witness a murder. The detective, because of the circumstances of being where he is for the reason he is there, does not attempt to catch the killer and does not report the crime. He is later assigned the case and soon realizes that an innocent man is about to take the blame, and the only way he can clear him is to arrest the killer and become a witness against him. The story-teller also has a vested interest in the old case.
Night Editor (1946) Reviews
Wicked woman Janis Carter supplies oomph for gritty little noir
Night Editor was the proposed "pilot" for a series of B-movie programmers introduced by a bunch of graveyard-shift reporters working the police beat. The series came to naught, but this maiden effort bears watching. William Gargan is a basically decent married detective on the force who has been getting a little action on the side with rich dame Janis Carter, a haut-40s glamourpuss in the Claire Trevor/Helen Walker/Audrey Totter mold whose few performances leave us wondering why her career wasn't a lot bigger. Parked in a lover's lane one night, they witness a man bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with a tire iron. In the movie's most notorious scene, Carter reaches a pitch of erotic frenzy from this random act of sadistic voyeurism. Gargan then has to investigate the crime while keeping mum about the fact that he saw it happen. Of course it turns out that the murderer was not a stranger, but a well-to-do banker friend of Carter's.... Night Editor is a splendid example of why, in the early postwar years, audiences took to these dimly lit, zero-budget, quick-and-dirty crime dramas: They were unapologetically sleazy, they had no time for the sentimental gloss that Hollywood had confected, and they were shocking fun.
A femme fatale discovery
I just found my newest femme fatal favorite. Janis Carter, who plays an incredibly sexy but psychopathic society woman having a deranged affair with a police detective in the 1946 C-level noir Night Editor. Never saw her before. When she and the detective witness a woman being clubbed to death while they're sitting in a lover's lane, the Carter character suddenly starts yelling, "I want to see the body." Man, when this lady asks for a "date" with her cop lover, you know she's not fooling around. This actress was far more convincing as a dangerous seductress than most of the other actresses playing those roles in the 40s and 50s, with the exceptions of Barbara Stanwick and Gloria Grahame. What a waste that she didn't appear in more and better noirs.
First rate film noir
NIGHT EDITOR is as good as any other noir produced in the forties: it's got a solid, intelligent story; a great flawed lead character; a nasty femme fatale; beautifully fluid camera-work; and that all around, despairing, hard-boiled feel. But because it's only got B-level stars and a no-name director, it's not thought of highly. Too bad: it has all the ingredients needed for a great film. William Gargan is a cop who's having a fling with the aforementioned Femme Fatale Janis Carter -- hardly anyone is more ice-like and more cold-hearted than she -- neglecting his loving wife and son. While on a rendezvous with her, they witness a murder -- but can't come forward without wrecking his life and career. He's torn... but she just wants to have fun. The framing device of the "Night Editor" (a bunch of newspapermen at night recounting various stories) doesn't work. But otherwise, this is dark, good, fun noir. Gargan and Carter really give it their all. Loved it.
Noir in B
This is a superb film noir B picture. It stars William Gargan as a cop, and the sizzling dish Janis Carter as the femme fatale. And what a femme and how fatale! She is really something. What a pity she did not achieve the status in films which she clearly deserved. Here she plays a hyper-glamorous psychotic man-eater. Poor, bumbling homicide detective Gargan is no match for her. He succumbs, and succumbs, and succumbs. Well, one evening things get complicated. One has to remember that he is happily married to sweetie Martha, played with big loving eyes and a warm smile by 'Jeff' Donnell (she was born Jean Marie but was always called by the nickname of Jeff; see her also as Sylvia Nicolai in IN A LONELY PLACE, 1950), and adores his son. But there he is sitting in a car in a lover's retreat off the road, with Miss Glamour-puss, doing his usual succumbing, when another car pulls up and does not see them. The man proceeds to bash in the skull of the girl and then runs off, but not before they see his face very clearly in the headlights. It later transpires that Janis knows the man very well, but she says nothing at the time. Gargan starts to give chase but then realizes that he dare not do so because his involvement with Janis will come to light and his wife might leave him. So he endures an enforced silence and is then a member of the homicide team which investigates that very crime. A wrong man is accused and is about to 'get the chair'. Tension mounts. Should he do the right thing and stop the execution, at the risk of his career and his marriage? He wants to, but Janis is going crazier and crazier. She is so nuts that she makes statements like: 'I don't know why I do these things' as she tries to stab a man to death. Just the kind of girlfriend one wants! She is a rich socialite and highly sophisticated, thus intimidating the humble Gargan further. As he bitterly says to her at one point: 'You and I both add up to zero.' Every time he tries to leave her, she kisses him, which all goes to show just how dangerous kissing can be. After they have seen the murder, Janis gets a wild look in her eye and, in the midst of a seizure of psychotic excitement, says she wants to go and look at the girl's bashed-in skull and all the brains spattered all over the car because it excites her, and Gargan restrains her only with great difficulty. Janis really is very convincing in all of these scenes, and it is all pretty hair-raising. And so the story progresses. I must not reveal the ending. The next year, Janis went on to scare people further in FRAMED (1947).
The Ice lady cometh
The nifty little B Noir is part of the Bad Girls of Film Noir series. The picture is really worth seeing just to see Janis Carter in action. Her frenetic desire to see the body after this guy had just bludgeoned this girl to death was a scene to remember. But she was really the ice lady that giveth and Janis Carter just kept on giving with her icy grip on the the cop and her ability to out maneuver just about everyone. I had never seen Janis Carter in a B Noir movie but if this is what she is capable of then some of her others might be worth looking for. The words just one more kiss really take on true meaning with Janis Carter. But watch out for that ice pick.