Kevin McCarthy hits you in the solar plexus

NIGHTMARE (1956)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

One of my favorite genres has and always will be film noir. Noir is steeped in the existential, a world of no real heroes and where one's morality is put to the test. A story of amnesia where the protagonist has no clue why he has a recurring nightmare of killing someone, only to discover he might have, is not a new tale and it wasn't in 1956 with the release of the film "Nightmare," but it doesn't change how effective it can be in the right hands.

Kevin McCarthy is a jazz clarinetist, Stan Grayson, who is suffering from one of those recurring nightmares. He is staying in a New Orleans hotel but the last thing on his mind is attending a jazz album recording - he has blood on his arm and possesses a mysterious key (all this occurs after waking up from the nightmare). Enter Stan's brother-in-law, Rene (Edward G. Robinson), a detective who is suspicious of Stan's nightmare since Stan inadvertently takes him and his own sister to a mansion off the beaten path where a murder may have occurred. Stan insists he had nothing to do with it and Rene is ready to arrest him until...ah, would not dream of it.

Most of "Nightmare" is claustrophobic and keeps you on edge, unaware of where it may be headed. Did Stan actually commit a murder or it is all a major coincidence? But then a revelation occurs that seems to have popped into the filmmakers' heads without leading us into the twist with some inner clues. An odd character appears that comes directly out of left field and makes one pause for a moment - did the nightmare have to lead to a resolution that was tidy and a little too perfect? I love ambiguity in movies and especially noir and McCarthy, who conveys the noir ideal of desperation beautifully, sings sour, nuanced notes of isolation and suicidal tendencies. It is a damn near perfect performance that should have led to a downer of an ending or some other finish - Stan is a man unable to control his impulses and unable to distinguish between nightmare and reality (Edward G. Robinson made a similar "dream noir" with the excellent "The Woman in the Window" a decade earlier). Such an intense performance merits something much darker and foreboding.

"Nightmare" is often shrewdly written and directed by Maxwell Shane, and this film is a remake of his own "Fear in the Night" with DeForest Kelley. That film is unseen by me. A title like "Nightmare" should have ended with something less than light and airy yet McCarthy's sweaty, urgent performance hits you in the solar plexus.