In following the drama of a jazz quintet and its self-destructive leader, “Blues in the Night is one of the best of a small group of rather serious movies about jazz and swing (others include Syncopation and Birth of the Blues) made in the early '40s as a partial reaction against the glossy big-band Hollywood musicals of the period.... The film is very much of a film noir...even before the descriptive term had been coined or its stylistics outlined, it was already, as if by instinct, following most of the ‘rules' of that particular cinematic game.... It is an exhilarating film, and one senses that everybody connected with it honestly thought that it was an important film and gave it their all.... But undoubtedly the greatest joy for current film aficionados is the chance to see a quintet of early montages by Don Siegel...telling whole chunks of important story material via impressionistic design and editing that cuts down a reel of plot to about a minute.... Even if Blues in the Night wasn't so much fun on its own, speeding like a locomotive to its overwrought climax, these Siegel montages would justify the whole film.” William K. Everson