Classic scares arrive in “Dead of Night” 4K UHD
- Peggy Earle
- 6 hours ago
- 6 min read
4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
English actor Michael Redgrave plays a cabaret ventriloquist Maxwell Frere, whose dummy Hugo seems to have a mind — and a voice — of his own, in one of the supernatural stories told in “Dead of Night.”
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“DEAD OF NIGHT”
4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray, 1945, Not Rated
Best extra: Commentary by novelist/critic Tim Lucas
CALL IT anthology. Call it portmanteau. Whichever adjective works for you, Ealing Studios’ “Dead of Night” is a spooky, completely entertaining British film presented by Kino Lorber in its original uncut 103-minute version. It’s made up of five disparate short films, linked by their supernatural occurrences, as well as their appearance in one man’s recurring nightmare.
Beginning with the well-used horror movie trope in which a group of strangers are invited to the same remote country house, we’re introduced to Walter Craig, played by Mervyn Johns. If Johns looks familiar to some of you, it’s because he played Bob Cratchit in the wonderful 1951 version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Craig is an architect who’s been invited to the Tudor farmhouse by its owner, who wants to have it remodeled. When he arrives, he recognizes the house and the people in it, because he’s seen them all in a dream. One of the guests, a psychiatrist, Dr. Van Straaten (Frederick Valk), insists upon a rational explanation for Walter’s scary déja vu, but each of the other guests tells of an eerie experience they’ve had – dramatized in five segments – which can’t be explained away with logic.
The film boasts four directors: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Deardon and Robert Hamer, as well as five writers, one of whom was H.G. Wells. The fine cast includes Michael Redgrave, Googie Withers and Sally Ann Howes. Redgrave’s performance is especially notable, as a ventriloquist whose dummy appears to have a nefarious personality of its own. When originally released in the U.S., two of the five segments were edited out, both for length and because of what prudish American censors considered objectionable subject matter at the time.
(1) Architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) arrives at a country estate, where he encounters a group of strangers. (2) After Walter tells them that the house, and all of them, look familiar to him, they each tell about eerie experiences they've had. (3-6)
One guest (Anthony Baird) describes his recovery in a hospital, after a race car accident, and the odd things that happen to him.
VIDEO/AUDIO
The 80th anniversary 4K restoration was handled by StudioCanal in the U.K., who scanned the original 35mm camera negative and a few spots with the best surviving elements. The resolution varies in clarity, from so-so inside the country estate to excellent with the majority of the five different episodes – especially exteriors. The 4K has a slight advantage over the enclosed Blu-ray – also sourced from the 4K master – with refined film grain and costume details such as the tweed jacket worn by Craig.
The HDR10 and Dolby Vision grayscale is well-balanced across highlights, midtones, and shadows. But strangely, a couple of marks and scratches were not digitally removed. No worries, it’s not a distraction.
Overall, the restoration is very good, but not quite at the level of Warner Bros.’ “Casablanca” or “The Maltese Falcon,” Sony’s “The Big Heat,” Paramount’s “Sunset Boulevard” and “Stalag 17,” Kino Lorber/Paramount’s “High Noon,” and “Kino Lorber/MGM’s “The Train,” or Universal/Criterion’s “Winchester ‘73” without HDR grading.
The original mono soundtrack has been restored to 2.0 DTS-HD, and pops and hisses were cleaned up Everything is delivered front and centered, including composer Georges Auric’s score.
Teenager (Sally Ann Howes) recounts a scary encounter at a Christmas party.
EXTRAS
The two extras in this Kino Lorber 2-disc set are both worthwhile.
“Remembering Dead of Night” (115 mins) is a feature-length documentary on the Blu-ray disc, comprised of several British writers, critics, an actor, and director John Landis (“An American Werewolf in London,” “Blues Brothers) nerding out on every conceivable aspect of the film.
Author/film critic/screenwriter Tim Lucas’ running commentary – for those who might not want that deep a dive, Lucas has plenty of interesting background and trivia, albeit with a bit too much expository description of what viewers already know. One thing that wasn’t mentioned in either extra is the backdrop seen during the opening credits. It’s a drawing by the great artist Henry Moore, who went on to become an internationally lauded sculptor until his death in 1986.
Lucas calls the film “playful,” and “one of the most influential of its kind,” which “scored well with postwar audiences looking for escapism.” It also appealed to members of the Surrealist movement, Lucas notes, including Spanish director Luis Buñuel.
One of the five segments, in which a wounded race car driver (Hugh Grainger) looks out his hospital window and sees a hearse driver (Miles Malleson) who tells him, “Just enough room for one inside.” It later inspired a “Twilight Zone” episode. Lucas points out the recurring image of a blazing log fire, which is typical in ghost story films.
(1) A married couple (Ralph Michael and Googie Withers) tell about an antique mirror they bought. (2&3) The mirror gives a bizarre reflection, which causes the husband’s personality to become violent.
In the segment in which the youngest houseguest (Sally Ann Howes) recalls a Christmas party where she encountered a mysterious little boy. Lucas explains that the murder story she tells reflects a well-known historic case in England in which a teenage girl was killed by her younger brother. The case also inspired such writers as Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and Wilkie Collins.
Lucas also remarks on Auric’s score, saying that it is “almost bipolar,” with its moods of both dread and humor.
Lucas does an excellent job imparting information on the careers of the various actors and production crew. Ralph Michael, who plays Googie Withers’ husband in the segment about a haunted mirror, began his career with “Dead of Night,” and went on to appear in over 100 movies. Lucas adds a bit of trivia about the mirror used in the film – there was only one made, so the scene in which Withers breaks it had to be captured in one take.
The comical segment, based on an H.G. Wells story, about the two golfers (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) marked the second time the actors appeared as a duo. The first was in Hitchcock’s 1938 “The Lady Vanishes,” which also marked Michael Redgrave’s first film appearance. Lucas explains that the golfers’ segment is there to “give the audience a chance to laugh and decompress.” He notes that the building used as the elegant golf club was later seen in the James Bond classic “Goldfinger.”
(1) Two friends (Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford) fall for the same woman (Peggy Bryson). (2) They decide to play a game of golf to determine who will be the lucky suitor, after which spooky happenings take place.
The ventriloquist segment, directed by Cavalcanti, is the “daddy of all creepy ventriloquist stories” with “the most horrific possibilities,” Lucas says. The dummy’s voice was actually not Redgrave’s, but that of a real ventriloquist.
Lucas praises the then-bold casting of Black actress Elizabeth Welch as Beulah, an independent and successful nightclub owner and singer. Lucas notes that
Ealing Studios gave Redgrave the dummy as a present after the film wrapped.
Finally, Lucas discusses the downbeat twist in the “sting in the tail” ending of “Dead of Night,” later often evident in episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “The Twilight Zone,” as well as in Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and Brian de
Palma’s “Dressed to Kill.”
— Peggy Earle
(1) Frere the ventriloquist has become unhinged, and is interviewed by a psychiatrist (Frederick Volk). (2&3) A flashback from Frere’s nightclub act at a Paris hotel. Club owner and singer Chez Beulah (Elizabeth Welch) with American ventriloquist Sylvester Kee (Hartley Power). (4) Kee runs into Frere and Hugo at the London Imperial Palace hotel bar.
(1-5) Walter Craig’s nightmare becomes more terrifying.
SPECS
100 GB disc
TRUE 4K mastering
Captured on 35mm film stock (1.37:1 aspect ratio).
Video bitrate: Varies from 60 to 90 Mbps, with a running time of 103 minutes.
HDR10 maximum light level: 1005 nits
Max frame average light level: 50 nits
Rotten Tomatoes: Top Critics’ 86 percent, Moviegoers 86 percent
The (London) Times selected “Dead of Night” as a film you have to see.
Taste of Cinema website – 15 essential films of Ealing Studios, where “Dead of Night” lands at No. 4 between “No Limit” (1935) and “The Man in the White Suit” (1951).
IMDb.com favorite British films of the 1940s: “Dead of Night” was No. 12 between “Great Expectations” (1946) and “Brighton Rock” (1948).
4K menu screen
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