Everything about Clash By Night totally explained
» For the 1941 play, see Clash by Night (Odets drama)
Clash by Night (
1952) is a
black-and-white film noir drama directed by
Fritz Lang and starring
Barbara Stanwyck,
Paul Douglas,
Marilyn Monroe and
Robert Ryan. The movie was based on the play by
Clifford Odets, adapted by writer Alfred Hayes. This was the first film in which Monroe was credited before the movie's title.
During the shooting, the now famous naked calendar photos of Monroe surfaced and reporters hounded the actress during the filming of the movie.
Plot
The film tells of Mae (Stanwyck) who returns to her home town, the small fishing village of
Monterey. She moves in with her brother Joe (
Keith Andes) and although he isn't happy to see her, he accepts her back into the family. She begins to date Jerry (Paul Douglas), a simple but hard working fisherman. She also has her eye on Earl Pfeiffer (Robert Ryan), a film projectionist. He makes his feelings for her known right even though he's married. Not long after Mae decides to marry Jerry.
Even after having a baby with Jerry, Mae becomes restless and because she isn't in love with Jerry, she begins an affair with Earl. Jerry discovers the affair, and during a confrontation with the couple, Mae reveals that she's leaving Jerry to be with Earl.
After a few drinks and talk with his Uncle Vince (
J. Carrol Naish), Jerry confronts Earl and a fight ensues. Jerry nearly strangles Earl until Mae arrives. Jerry leaves, but when Mae comes to their home to take her baby, she finds that Jerry has taken the child.
Background
This Odets' work was originally performed as a neo-realist Broadway play in 1941, with
Tallulah Bankhead in the Stanwyck role. Fritz Lang changed the locale from
Staten Island to a fishing village in California, but he kept intact the oppressive seacoast atmosphere.
The drama is structured into two almost equal parts and each is almost a complete drama in its own. The two parts are separated by a year in time. Each section begins with a non-fiction, documentary look at the fishing industry in Monterey, California. It then moves on to the story. Arguably, the motion picture is two films: each of around an hour's length and strung together as a serial.
The title of the film comes from Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach" (
1851). Specifically: It is a place "where ignorant armies clash by night."
Cast
Critical reception
When the film first opened the staff at
Variety was harsh on the film but appreciated Barbara Stanwyck's work, writing, "Clifford Odets'
Clash by Night, presented on Broadway over a decade earlier, reaches the screen in a rather aimless drama of lust and passion.
Clash captures much of the drabness of the seacoast fishing town, background of the pic, but only occasionally does the narrative's suggested intensity seep through...Barbara Stanwyck plays the returning itinerant with her customary defiance and sullenness. It is one of her better performances. Robert Ryan plays the other man with grim brutality while Marilyn Monroe is reduced to what is tantamount to a bit role."
Critic Sam Adams wrote about Fritz Lang directorial style, "Restraint was never Fritz Lang's problem. Indeed, his version of Clifford Odets'
Clash by Night is overwrought verging on camp... In
Clash's wild kingdom, strong women can only be sated by the threat of male violence: After she marries sturdy lug Paul Douglas, Stanwyck is unerringly drawn towards Ryan's volatile woman-hater, while fish-canner Marilyn Monroe shows her affection to fiance Keith Andes by socking him in the arm, a gesture he threatens to return in spades. Lang tilled the same turf two years later in
Human Desire, a similarly heavy-handed expose of man's bestial nature. Perhaps Lang should have stuck with the style of
Clash's extraordinary, near-wordless opening, which begins with shots of seagulls and seals and slowly mixes in the actors in their natural habitats."
Critic Dennis Schwartz wrote, "The performances are stagy but filled with fiery emotion. The performers are able to bring out the complexities underlying each of their characters as they battle each other, hoping not to die of loneliness or of cynicism. Everything about these characters and their alienation seemed natural something that was grounded by Lang's showing them at work, never cutting them off from all the other travails they were going through. Lang's point is how easy it isn't to see the faults in yourself, as easy as it's to see them in someone else.
Clash by Night brilliantly tells how some lonely folks break out from their shadowy existence, as if that darkness was a prison where survival at any cost is the name of the game."
The review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 88% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 8 reviews, marking the film as "Fresh."
Adaptation
Another production of the Odets play was directed by
John Frankenheimer for
Playhouse 90 on
June 13,
1957 with
Kim Stanley in the lead role.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Clash By Night'.
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