Review of Night Unto Night

It was a positive surprise to see Ronald Reagan and Broderick Crawford for once in serious roles, Broderick Crawford playing an interesting artist with psychological insight and making great art, Ronald Reagan battling with personal problems of exacerbating epilepsy, which puts him off to a degree that he wants to kill himself. Well, Viveca is there to avert his attention from death to life, and she understands him, as she herself has battled with death all her life since her husband died at sea and at war, which trauma she has desperately tried to survive by constantly imagining his return in her dreams, going so far that she actually hallucinates hearing him. The question is what is true and what is self-suggestion. There are a few doctors as well, and although they don't play any great parts, they are necessary for the context, and they are both very knowledgeable, as they admit they know nothing. Above all, the film is beautiful with marvellous cinematography, Franz Waxman's music is among his best, Viveca Lindfors is as good as ever and as beautiful as a dream, while the other lady does her best to drag the whole story down. There is a storm in the end which eventually brings everything to some positive settlement.