Yöllinen murha (1957)

Yöllinen murha (1957). Yöllinen murha: Directed by Abner Biberman. With Ray Danton, Colleen Miller, Merry Anders, Willis Bouchey. A mental patient with a violent past is released from the institution, against the advice of his doctors, and sent back to his old neighborhood. Realizing that he can't handle the pressures of big-city life, and not wanting to commit the kinds of crimes that got him put away in the first place, he hops a bus heading out of the city and winds up in a small coastal town. Taking a room in a small motel, he falls for the daughter of the motel's owner, and everything seems to be going well for him, until the girl's father starts to get suspicious about his past.

“A patient released prematurely from a mental hospital tries to find a new life at a roadside stopover. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI canu0026#39;t imagine more than ten people saw this little oddity in a theatre. I expect the movieu0026#39;s risky downer material got made because it was so cheap to produce. Reviewer bmacyu0026#39;s right —the budget is rock bottom, a few shots of the Malibu coastline, an office interior, and thatu0026#39;s pretty much it, along with a minimal cast. So why has the movie stayed with me over the years, instead of being just another forgotten cheapo. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe filmu0026#39;s not a minor gem—that would be too much of a stretch. Instead, I think Dantonu0026#39;s performance manages a level that truly disturbs, especially with the tight script and noirish background. Catch the occasional little motion or grimace betraying Royu0026#39;s (Danton) inner turmoil as he struggles with a society full of minor pressures. Itu0026#39;s a carefully calibrated performance that shows how an emotive u0026quot;moreu0026quot; can be expressed by a judicious u0026quot;lessu0026quot;. And since Roy is basically a likable guy, his plight becomes doubly affecting as he tries to blend into a normal life. That last lonely shot of him is, I think, one of the more disturbing to come out of the generally cheerful 1950u0026#39;s.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOn a different note—I suspect Hitchcock, also at Universal at the time, caught this minor production since the project bears certain key similarities to Psycho (1960). Consider, for example, the roadside motel, the disturbed personality, the brutal murder, along with the symbolic use of birds, in this case sea gulls. Nothing really hangs on the comparison, except maybe the notion that a widely acclaimed classic managed to grow out of an obscure seedbed. Anyway, this little oddity has its own peculiar virtues, so catch up with it if you can.”