Following their restoration of The Prince and the Showgirl, Warner Archive has brought another Marilyn movie – Clash By Night – to Blu-Ray for the first time. And this summer, The Misfits will be released in the UK and Germany as a limited edition 4K/UHD Blu-Ray mediabook, via Capelight Pictures.
While we’re waiting, here’s a selection of reviews for Clash By Night (with screenshots from Blu-Ray.com.)
“Fritz Lang’s wavering American career hit a high note in this adaptation of a Clifford Odets play with a four-star cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan and Marilyn Monroe, all billed above the title. It’s a tawdry love triangle in a fishing town, where infidelity brings violence to the surface. Monroe’s character — ‘Twenty, the age of miracles’ — has her own view of matrimonial harmony. Lang holds up his end, but the actors’ handling of the stylised Odets dialogue is what makes the movie work.
This moody drama is usually labeled Noir. We’d call it ‘noir by association’ — it’s really a deep-dish theatre piece, a dramatic potboiler … Adapted from Odets’ 1941 play, the low-key but above-average Clash by Night has likely been given the bump to Blu-ray for the same reason as last month’s The Prince and the Showgirl: it features an impressive performance by Marilyn Monroe. Although it lacks the usual violence and visual excesses of the noir style, the unsettled, dissatisfied attitude is there … It’s a quality production, with excellent direction from Fritz Lang in the studio and on distant location on the Monterey Peninsula.
The original Broadway play was set in a fishing community on Staten Island, with Tallulah Bankhead in the lead role. Alfred Hayes’ screen adaptation reportedly reversed Odets’ original grim finale. The play’s Jerry eventually commits a tragic murder … Contemporary critics liked the actors, even as they disliked the notion that roughhouse physicality is inseparable from love relationships … in the complimentary Joe Doyle-Peggy courtship, affection is expressed with love-punches.
The story continuity is broken into two parts, before and after the birth of Mae and Jerry’s baby. With the dramatic structure locked in, Fritz Lang occupies himself with the solving of technical problems, like a beachside club shot that uses two coordinated rear-projections. Keith Andes and Marilyn Monroe run across the screen as part of a projection plate on a beach, and then appear on the right half of the screen ‘live’ in front of a second rear-projection plate.
The subplot with Joe Doyle and his girlfriend Peggy draws more attention than it should because Peggy is played by Marilyn Monroe, whose career was just shifting into high gear. The role is more than a bit part, and she acquits herself rather well. Mae gives Peggy some choice counsel: ‘Always take the man who’ll break the door down. Advice from Mama.’ Reports from the set were that Ms. Monroe accepted Fritz Lang’s demanding direction without too much difficulty. Lang allowed Monroe’s acting coach [Natasha] Lytess on the set until he found out she was working with Marilyn at home. From then on he coached her himself with Stanwyck’s help. It worked out– Monroe got star billing and received generally good reviews.
The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray of Clash by Night of course bests the very good older DVD from 2005 — the higher-grade format reminds us of how beautifully turned out were RKO’s films of the period. Although not given to exotic expressionist effects, Nicholas Musuraca’s B&W images are much richer than those of Lang’s later, plain-wrap RKO pictures … That documentary-like opening is quite handsome.
Peter Bogdanovich knew Fritz Lang personally. His feature commentary is salted with audio bites from his own 1965 interview with the legendary director. They go over the same topics Lang discussed with Lotte Eisner for her feature biography Fritz Lang: working with Monroe, the rear-projection trick, the docu opening. But they’re all good stories.
An original trailer is also included.” – Glenn Erickson, Trailers From Hell
“Clash by Night is a fairly engaging melodrama which undercuts its female characters by consistently forcing them to betray their feminist ideals for some frankly unappealing men. This is a product of this period in time, especially, but it is no less frustrating as you hope for a better life for these women. The performances are strong and help smooth over some of the more irritating moments. The atmosphere that is conjured is flawless, and there is a dark dread that hangs over the proceedings as you wonder exactly how things might spiral out of control. Warner Archive has released a Blu-Ray featuring a 5-star A/V presentation and a great supplemental commentary. If you are a fan of Fritz Lang or anyone in the ensemble, this is worth adding to your collection.” – Dillon Gonzales, GeekVibesNation
“Fritz Lang’s Clash by Night makes an overheated melodramatic love triangle narrative into something unusual with his vivid senses of style and location and through a handful of memorable performances from four top stars of its era. The Warner Archive Blu-ray release is a beauty!
The script uses Marilyn Monroe and Keith Andes as the contrasting couple to the D’Amatos. Both physically and emotionally drawn to one another and paired perfectly, the couple pops in and out of the action only important to emphasize how unhappy the principals are with their relationship. It must be said, however, that both Monroe and Andes are at the height of their attractiveness (this was his film introduction, and it was the first time Marilyn was billed over the title of a movie), and their presences are always welcome.” – Matt Hough, Home Theatre Forum
“Fritz Lang’s Clash by Night is a big-screen production with performances to match, where almost each and every key character aims for the back row. It’s a soapy but entertaining affair that’s famous for having one of Marilyn Monroe’s first major dramatic roles, with the biggest surprise being that she’s not the weak link in the chain here. Though fraught with too much melodrama for its own good, the film’s memorable characters and ace cinematography make Clash by Night a watchable production that warrants another look on Blu-ray.
Clash by Night is mostly concerned with the inner workings of this tangled character web: their (mis)treatment of each other, trust and betrayal, soapy twists and turns, and a overall bitter attitude towards the human condition. Truly ‘good’ characters are few and far between, and the ones that deserve happiness often don’t get it. Lang’s skilled direction keeps things moving at a good clip and the cinematography of Nicholas Musuraca is a delight, and its five main actors are able to separate good performances from their mostly unlikable characters.
Perhaps the weakest of the bunch (or at least the one who upsets Clash by Night‘s emotional imbalance for the worse) is Paul Douglas: it’s regularly implied that Jerry is a kind and caring man but even his actions are mostly driven by raw aggression, including a few red-flag outbursts that only get more repetitive as his fragile relationship with unhappy Mae falls apart in the second half … Had a more nuanced take on Jerry helped to anchor their one-sided relationship, more sympathy could have been generated in critical moments … and that includes the film’s conclusion, which ring a little hollow due to his sudden change of heart.
Regardless of such flaws, Clash by Night still works well enough as a rough character study polished to a visual shine, and that end of the deal is supported greatly by Warner Archive’s stunning new Blu-ray. Led by another absolutely top-tier restoration of its beautiful source material — which includes a new lossless audio track — this is a solid package flanked by a couple of DVD-era bonus features that should appeal to fans of the cast and director.” – Randy Miller, Blu-Ray.com
“Marilyn Monroe, in her first big screen role, does an excellent job in a fairly small role. She became known later in her career for having difficulty remembering lines, but here she seems confident and at ease as Peggy. She’s on screen in a number of lengthy takes, and she keeps up with the camera and the other actors to provide a first-rate performance. And, of course, she’s beautiful, even as a fish cannery worker in baggy jeans and a shabby blouse … Monroe is underrated as an actress. Even in this small role, she ‘holds the screen.'” – Dennis Seuling, The Digital Bits
The Marilyn Report 
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