Make no mistake. Gordon Douglas staged splendid action scenes, and this film, like many he made in this period, are well worth watching. (My favorite is THEM, where the build-up to the appearance of the title menace is so good, taut, and believable that you simply accept the implausible when it appears.) But, it's stretching a point to call BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN a noir classic. It's really much more a police procedural (and I agree, no doubt an influential one) than a noir, even with the O'Brien character's bitterness and the iciness of the sociopathic heavy. And, while it's good of its kind and budget level, with some striking action set pieces, it's really no better than that.
The problem is that the Stevens and O'Brien cops, while extremely likable, are, despite the edgy shading given O'Brien, simply too good and heroic to be memorable noir icons. They're straight-shooting, professional cops--as is the entire force from the top down, and, as a result, never really become more than simple heroes. The Stevens' character's shooting is staged with brutal swiftness, and is a stunner, but his deathbed scene seems present only to motivate the cold-blooded (and, frankly, extremely improbable) lone-wolf heroics of O'Brien. And the villain Garris is a chilling hood and nothing more. His execution at the climax resolves matters effectively, but Garris' demise lacks the feral poetry that makes, say, Cody Jarrett's end in WHITE HEAT the noir classic it is.
That's what BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN is missing, as a supposed noir. Compare it to two other celebrated noirish police procedurals of the period--HE WALKED BY NIGHT and ON DANGEROUS GROUND, and you'll see, I hope, what I mean.
HE WALKED BY NIGHT was, in many ways, even more influential a police procedural than Douglas' film. Two things make it stick in the memory long after viewing, even to the point of haunting dreams. The first is the evocative shadowy camera-work of John Alton, combined with stunning locations like the LA sewers, to make the dogged police pursuit of their prey truly suspenseful. Maybe more important is the effort to make Richard Basehart's hi-tech thief more than just a stock villain: oh, he's a violent sociopath, yes, but he's also clearly smart, painfully alienated, and someone you can imagine making something of his life under other circumstances. One respects the cops for their efforts in this film, but one isn't expected to simply cheer them on, as I think was intended in the Douglas film. The climax of HE WALKED BY NIGHT was a tragedy. One can't say that for BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN.
ON DANGEROUS GROUND takes an element of BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN--a good cop gone to bitterness and violence from the job--and presents his redemption in a manner so remarkably poetic and memorable that it clearly demonstrates the difference between a true noir classic and a solid but unremarkable programmer. This Nicholas Ray movie--both in storyline and visuals (via George Diskant, who also shot the Douglas film)--takes great pains to present a world not of mere good cops and evil criminals, but characters on both sides of the law who share human tendencies for good and ill. Robert Ryan's cop is so obsessed with doing his job that he's become nigh psychopathic. He literally must be taken out of his familiar, suffocating haunts, and made to face the extent of his dehumanization. That this happens while he's pursuing the perpetrator of a horrific murder is but one of the resonant ironies that makes Ray's film linger in the mind and heart.
In short, real noir is poetic...and BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN, good that it may be, simply lacks the poetry of a true classic...
The problem is that the Stevens and O'Brien cops, while extremely likable, are, despite the edgy shading given O'Brien, simply too good and heroic to be memorable noir icons. They're straight-shooting, professional cops--as is the entire force from the top down, and, as a result, never really become more than simple heroes. The Stevens' character's shooting is staged with brutal swiftness, and is a stunner, but his deathbed scene seems present only to motivate the cold-blooded (and, frankly, extremely improbable) lone-wolf heroics of O'Brien. And the villain Garris is a chilling hood and nothing more. His execution at the climax resolves matters effectively, but Garris' demise lacks the feral poetry that makes, say, Cody Jarrett's end in WHITE HEAT the noir classic it is.
That's what BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN is missing, as a supposed noir. Compare it to two other celebrated noirish police procedurals of the period--HE WALKED BY NIGHT and ON DANGEROUS GROUND, and you'll see, I hope, what I mean.
HE WALKED BY NIGHT was, in many ways, even more influential a police procedural than Douglas' film. Two things make it stick in the memory long after viewing, even to the point of haunting dreams. The first is the evocative shadowy camera-work of John Alton, combined with stunning locations like the LA sewers, to make the dogged police pursuit of their prey truly suspenseful. Maybe more important is the effort to make Richard Basehart's hi-tech thief more than just a stock villain: oh, he's a violent sociopath, yes, but he's also clearly smart, painfully alienated, and someone you can imagine making something of his life under other circumstances. One respects the cops for their efforts in this film, but one isn't expected to simply cheer them on, as I think was intended in the Douglas film. The climax of HE WALKED BY NIGHT was a tragedy. One can't say that for BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN.
ON DANGEROUS GROUND takes an element of BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN--a good cop gone to bitterness and violence from the job--and presents his redemption in a manner so remarkably poetic and memorable that it clearly demonstrates the difference between a true noir classic and a solid but unremarkable programmer. This Nicholas Ray movie--both in storyline and visuals (via George Diskant, who also shot the Douglas film)--takes great pains to present a world not of mere good cops and evil criminals, but characters on both sides of the law who share human tendencies for good and ill. Robert Ryan's cop is so obsessed with doing his job that he's become nigh psychopathic. He literally must be taken out of his familiar, suffocating haunts, and made to face the extent of his dehumanization. That this happens while he's pursuing the perpetrator of a horrific murder is but one of the resonant ironies that makes Ray's film linger in the mind and heart.
In short, real noir is poetic...and BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN, good that it may be, simply lacks the poetry of a true classic...