The Nighttime Is The Right Time-With Fritz Lang’s Film Adaptation Of Clifford Odets’ “Clash By Night” In Mind  

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

No, I am not here to look over somebody’s, some other reviewer’s shoulder now that Greg Green, the moderator on this site has let the cat out of the bag and told one and all that with my review of 1956’s Giant I was, as he put it, putting myself to pasture. Although I would not have put it that way a few more or less serious medical problems have required me to back off a little on reviewing films, a task I have done now for over forty years-and will continue periodically to do.  (I should add beyond the medical problems, or rather in conjunction with those medical problems my long-time companion Laura Perkins who graces this publication with her occasional reviews had raised holy hell if I don’t slow down and back off-you know that is definitive then.)

Today though I am here to comment on a review of Clash By Night by one of the in-coming reviewers, Sandy Salmon, whom I have known for at least thirty year and have respected for his work at the American Film Gazette almost as long. That is saying something in this cutthroat film critic business where it seems the only real hearing you get is if you plummet some other reviewer’s take, which after all is just a subjective take, and draw blood. As fitting commentary to that respect is that I have freely “stolen” plenty of stuff from his pithy reviews over years (another “trick of the trade” when you don’t have anything bright to say or were hung-over or otherwise indisposed). So enough said about that.  

After reading Sandy’s review I also realized that I was not familiar with the film under review although as the regular readers know I live for film noir, or variations of it which I think is closer to the nut in Clash. So naturally I called him up to ask to borrow his copy of the DVD which he sent me a few days later and which I viewed a couple of days after that. No question as Sandy pointed out Clash is a little hidden gem of a film with the standout cast of Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, and a pre-iconic Marilyn Monroe. With top notch direction by Fritz Lang, the exiled German filmmaker who first drew my attention with his magnificent Metropolis. Lang knew to the marrow of his bones how to set a mood in black and white from the beginning of a film to the end here with a close up look at the shoreline of Monterey setting us up for the clashing waves to come-human clashing waves and with a screenplay by my old friend Artie Hayes from the hot pen of playwright Clifford Odets who before he turned 1950s red scare fink, snitch, sell-out did some very good work (interesting that most of the finks and slinkers like Elia Kazan, Langston Hughes, Josh White and a million others never did produce that much good work after they  went down on their knees to McCarthy or the HUAC and guys like Dalton Trumbo, Dashiell Hammett and Howard Fast who carried their toothbrushes ready to face the stinking bastinado with them into the House Un-American Activities Committee’s witch-hunt tribunals lived to do some good work after the red scare blew away like dust.   

No question this film had a good pedigree, had the stuff that kept things moving along in the funny little human drama being played out among ordinary folk with ordinary dreams which got smashed up against  the real world. Sandy made some good points as he summarized the ploy-line for the reader.  I have no quarrel with that but what I want to do is highlight some things that Sandy, the soul of discretion, kind of fluffed. (Remember every good film critic, maybe the whole freaking journalism profession such as it is, depends on some bloody spilling, giving that praise with one hand AND bombshells with the other already mentioned in this damn cutthroat profession-the lord (or lady) giveth and taketh away.) My take on what was going on with all that high-end dialogue that Artie produced to throw in the main character’s mouths. 

For openers let’s call things by their right name, this Mae Doyle, the role played by Barbara Stanwyck, was nothing but a tramp, a drifter and nighty-taker, nightery of any handy warm bed if it came to that. Sure Mae had some femme fatale qualities, Sandy was right to make a comparison with Phyllis, the wanton femme and man trap who put Walter Neff through the wringer in Double Indemnity also played by Ms. Stanwyck, but she was strictly from the wrong side of the tracks. That Phyllis had a certain style-a fatal style like all the beautiful femmes have as well as some handy pocketbook gun and a handy back-up guy waiting in the wings to bail her out when jam time came. Mae, and here Sandy and I will not disagree or if we do he is wrong since he is young at the film nori wars, was bound to let some guy who just wanted a good-looking woman to fill his house with kids take the gaff.  Mae had come home to working class Monterrey after having been out in the big wide world and gotten her younger years dreams crushed. She was now world weary and wary looking for a safe port. Call me politically incorrect or culturally insensitive but once a tramp always a tramp.

Here’s the play- Mae returns to her small family home where her brother, a commercial fisherman, remember old-time Monterey was the sardine capital of the world, Cannery Row now a shopping mall on the bay, made famous by John Steinbeck, is enthralled by Peggy, played by Marilyn Monroe, who is a lot more forgiving about the fate of a lost sister than her brother who nevertheless lets her stay. While keeping a low profile as something of a home body her brother’s boat captain, Jerry, played by gruff and throaty Paul Douglas, a regular sea dog working stiff comes a-courting. After a while, succumbing to a strong desire to have somebody take care of her, to be settled she accepts Jerry’s offer of marriage. Even in accepting Jerry’s proposal though she warned him that she was spoiled goods.           

Things go along for a while with Jerry and Mae, about a year, during which they have a child, a baby girl, but Mae begins to get the wanderlust, begins to get antsy around the very ordinary and plebian Jerry. Enter Earl, or rather re-enter Earl, Jerry’s friend, who had been interested in Mae from day one when Jerry introduced them. He, in the meantime, was now divorced and takes dead aim at Mae. And she takes the bait, falls hard for the fast-talking cynical Earl. They plan for Mae to fly the coop with the baby and a new life. Not so fast though once they confront Jerry with their affair, with his being cuckolded. This is where the dialogue gets right down to basics. Mae gives Jerry what’s what about her and Earl, about her needs. Jerry, blinders off, builds up a head of steam and in another scene almost kills Earl before he realized what he was doing.

This is the “pivot.” Jerry takes the baby on his boat. Mae suddenly realizes that the baby means more to her than Earl who as it turned out didn’t give a rat’s ass about the child. Having been once bitten though when Mae goes to Jerry to seek reconciliation he is lukewarm but as she turns to leave he relents. Maybe they can work things out, or at least that is the look on Mae’s face when she is brought back into the fold at the end of the film.  You really have to see this film to get a sense of the raw emotions on display, and on the contrary feelings each character has about his or her place in the sun. Nicely done Fritz and crew, nicely done.        

Mae knew it, knew it all the time she was leading poor sap Jerry, the role played by Paul Douglas. She took a supposed tough guy, a guy who had been hardened by the sea and twisted him around in and out in two second flat once she got her hooks into him. Earl knew that, Earl played by Robert Ryan, knew from minute one that whatever play Jerry was making for Mae he, Earl, was going to go down and dirty under the silky sheets with her before he was done-wedding ring or no wedding ring. And guess what as you already know she, when she got bored with the frankly boring Jerry and his fucking fish smells, his goddam sardine aura, she was ready to blow town with the hunky Earl. Didn’t think twice about it even with a little child in the way. Yeah, Jerry was made for the role of cuckold, maybe deserved it for having, what did Sandy call him, oh yeah, the blinders on way before he found some silky negligees and come hither perfumes hidden in her bureau drawer (courtesy of Earl or who knows who when she was “going to the movies” every night).       

Then he man’s up, man’s up when it is too late as they, Mae and Earl are ready to take a hike with that little baby in tow. Then Mae got cold feet, supposedly was mother-hungry for the child and was ready to do penance for her indiscretions. Earl had it right though, had Mae pegged as a tramp, as someone looking for the next adventure. That is what makes the end of the film run false as she practically begs Jerry to take her back now that she had seen the light. Jesus what a sap. Earl said it best. If she didn’t go away with him then it would only be a matter of time before she got bored again and took a walk, maybe came running back to him, him and the wild side of life. I bet six, two and even and will take on all-comers that she blows town before the next year is out. You heard it here first- a tramp is always a tramp-end of discussion. Nice first review here Sandy even if you didn’t get it all right, babbled the ball in a couple of places, good luck.