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Saturday, Aug 3, 2019
6 PM (100 mins)
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BAMPFA
Clash by Night
Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe,
This is a noir vision of a Sirkian Barbara Stanwyck role: the worldly-wise woman trying to make a go of domesticity. Defeated by the city, she returns to her small fishing town and attempts to suppress her sophistication by marrying a goodhearted fisherman, Paul Douglas. But she is drawn into the adulterous net of Robert Ryan, like her, an anguished misfit. The film, adapted from a play by Clifford Odets, has some of the most caustic dialogue of any of the fifties noirs. Visually, Fritz Lang and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca counterpose claustrophobic interiors and documentary-style location shooting of the Monterey sardine fishing industry and Cannery Row. Marilyn Monroe, in one of her first important dramatic roles, takes lessons from sister-in-law Stanwyck on how to be free and then come home “when you run out of places.”
FILM DETAILS
Screenwriter
- Alfred Hayes
Based On
the play by Clifford Odets
Cinematographer
- Nicholas Musuraca
Print Info
- B&W
- 35mm
- 100 mins
Source
- Warner Bros. Classics