He only came at night

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Movie
German title He only came at night
Original title The Night Walker
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1964
length 84 (German) / 86 (original) minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director William Castle
script Robert Bloch
production William Castle Productions
music Vic Mizzy
camera Harold E. Stine
cut Edwin H. Bryant
occupation

He only came at night (Original title: The Night Walker ) is an American thriller with horror elements by William Castle from 1964.

action

The disfigured, blind Howard Trent has an interview with his attorney Barry Moreland. Trent confronts Moreland about his wife Irene's recurring dreams, in which she keeps talking about an attractive man who Trent assumes is Irene's lover. Notoriously jealous Trent tells Moreland that he could be that man. Irene overhears this conversation, unnoticed by her husband. Immediately afterwards she speaks to Moreland and explains to him that she has never seen this man who appears in her dreams for real. When her husband hits Irene with the stick in another fit of jealousy, she escapes from the house. Suddenly there is a bang from the laboratory on the upper floor. Trent goes up to the room and a little later there is a violent explosion. The laboratory is completely destroyed, the explosion ripped a huge hole in both the ceiling and the floor. Trent is, as the investigating police officer Malone speculates, completely burned in the enormous heat generated by the explosion.

Irene, who now lives alone in the house, hears footsteps and the characteristic creaking of her dead husband's canes in the house one night. In the laboratory it is enveloped in clouds of smoke and mist, the laboratory door slams shut as if by magic. Right next to the locked laboratory door, her husband with the dead, white eyes is standing and moving threateningly towards her. Irene wakes up - it was just a dream. She goes to the laboratory; the locked door has been opened by someone. Then she drives into town to work with Moreland to sell her home. She couldn't live there any longer. Irene tells Moreland about her terrible nightmare last night and that she intends to live in the city apartment of her small cosmetics store from now on. There the young employee Joyce Holliday (in the US version: Holland) has already prepared Mrs. Trent's apartment for her. The following night Irene Trent is woken up again by an eerie clatter of canes. As she goes to the door, the man who appears in her dreams suddenly appears in the door. They both kiss. But again it's just a dream. The next morning, Joyce takes care of Irene.

When Irene has dinner with Moreland, Moreland lets it be known that she obviously has cognitive disorders and is possibly responsible for the laboratory fire. Irene angrily slaps him on the face and runs out of the restaurant. The following night, the man of her dreams reappears. He takes her with him and they both drive through the city at night. They stop in front of a building with a neo-Gothic arcade. Irene asks where you are. The man just says that she has been here many times. When he lights candles inside, she shrinks back in fear. He then blows out the candles again. Then they both kiss and toast with a glass of champagne. On the way back, the man takes her to a chapel. A ghostly scene opens up there: the man says that they are both going to get married now. However, the chapel guests are only life-size puppets. The pastor is also a doll. The introductory words of the gruesome wedding ceremony can be heard from the tape. When Irene is suddenly married, her husband is gone and she is locked in the church. The large chandelier with the burning candles hanging from the ceiling rotates with increasing speed. All of a sudden Howard Trent shows up and explains that they are both going to get married now. Irene is horrified and desperate and screams loudly. Heads turn in circles before their eyes. Then she wakes up again. The man from her dreams stands by her bed in her apartment and asks her: "Irene wake up". She is half asleep in her bed and screams with open eyes full of desperation "I can't wake up!"

The next day, Irene makes up with Barry Moreland. Irene explains to him what happened last night, and both follow the path that Irene had already taken with her dream man. In fact, they find the man's apartment where champagne was drunk. The apartment has changed, however: the furniture is covered, the pictures taken from the wall. Barry is not surprised: This apartment once belonged to Howard Trent, he explains. With luck, Moreland and Irene are now trying to find the chapel. In fact, they are doing well here too. However, the chapel has largely been cleared and, according to the gardener who worked in front of it, has not been used for three years. Moreland has increasing doubts about Irene's sanity. He asks her if her horror marriage with Howard doesn't keep her dreaming of dreams. Irene is not deterred, she also finds the wedding ring from last night's ghostly wedding on the chapel floor. When both have left the chapel, a man emerges from the background: It is the man from Irene's dreams.

Moreland has an idea. He mentions the name of the private detective George Fuller, whom Trent is said to have set on his allegedly unfaithful wife and then drives back to Irene's house to inspect Trent's documents. The man from the chapel calls the beauty parlor and speaks to Joyce. You know each other; obviously she's part of a plot against Irene Trent. When Irene returns to her apartment in the beauty parlor, Joyce speaks to her. She phoned a man who told her to wish Irene "pleasant dreams". Irene is scared to death. Meanwhile, Moreland has returned to the Trent house and hears a tape playing a conversation between Howard Trent and Detective Fuller. The tape shows that Trent firmly believed that his wife was having an affair with the lawyer, which Fuller denies. He found no evidence of this. Moreland wants to tell Irene about his find, but he only gets Joyce on the phone, who denies the presence of Irene in the drawing room.

The following night, the man from Irene's dreams and the chapel, who turns out to be George Fuller, breaks into the Trent mansion. In the destroyed laboratory room, the chapel's human puppets are stacked and the ceremonial tape is playing, while Fuller destroys the puppets and throws them down into the crater that was torn into the house in the explosion. The next day, Joyce tries to win Irene's trust. She offers Irene, who is afraid of the next night and the nightmares, to stay with her the next night. While Joyce leaves the room for a moment, Howard Trent, who was believed dead, comes through the back door and stabs Joyce from behind. Then he leaves the apartment. Dying, Joyce falls on the sleeping Irene's bed. Terrified, she jumps out of bed and tries to make a phone call. The phone is dead. Irene runs outside and runs straight into Barry Moreland. Moreland now agrees with Irene. Now he also believes that Howard is still alive. Both drive back to the Trent Villa in the middle of the night. While he goes into the house alone, Irene is supposed to call the police. But the phone cord of the phone booth is also cut. Then Irene hears two loud bangs from the villa. She runs into the lighted house and sees Moreland's revolver lying on the stairs. Someone calls out for help several times and I am “burning”. Another explosion sounds. When Irene goes into the laboratory, it is again filled with clouds of smoke. Suddenly Howard emerges from the fog like a ghost. He turns off the fog machine and takes off his perfect latex mask bit by bit: It's Barry Moreland.

Unmoved, he reveals to Irene that he murdered her husband to get his money. Trent had blindly trusted him in legal matters, and so he made himself a universal heir while drawing up the will. But Fuller found out about him and saw him go to the laboratory on the night of the murder, where Howard Trent died. Fuller then wanted to blackmail him. But both teamed up to drive Irene Trent insane together. Their nightmares suited them very well. When Moreland wants to kill her, Fuller suddenly appears in the doorway and shoots Moreland from behind. This collapses. Fuller explains that Joyce was his wife and that Moreland murdered her in cold blood. Fuller shows Irene how the mist and artificial explosions were created using a switchboard. But now, Fuller, he has no other choice. He says that another fire would break out tonight, this time removing all traces, including Irene. When Fuller tries to drive Irene into the abyss with a fog cannon, the injured Moreland jumps up. A short fight ensues and both fall into the abyss. At the end of the film, clouds of mist waft again in front of the camera and the viewer is wished for "pleasant dreams".

Production notes

He Came Only at Night was the last feature film by Barbara Stanwyck . Her film partner Robert Taylor was also her husband from 1939 to 1951. This Castle production was awarded by Universal . The world premiere took place on November 1, 1964, the German premiere on June 22, 1965.

The FSK released the film from the age of 16.

criticism

The reviews of this penultimate film from Castle's most important creative period (1957 to 1965), in which he focused on the staging of sometimes quite successful and effective horror thrillers with shock and comedy elements, were mixed to quite positive.

The film's large personal lexicon called it a "clever horror thriller". The Movie & Video Guide summed up: "Effective psychological thriller with good cast, unusual script by Robert Bloch". Halliwell's Film Guide , however, ruled: "Stiff and unconvincing but still fairly frightening low-budget shocker with a plot twist or two." The lexicon of international film wrote about it only came at night : "On terrifying effects calculating horror, in the dramaturgy of his Story remains stuck to the cliché. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 7: R - T. Robert Ryan - Lily Tomlin. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 620.
  2. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 933.
  3. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 731.
  4. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 2, Reinbek near Hamburg 1990, p. 881.