Dead of Night

1945
Approved
1h 17m

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

15K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

Play trailer2:43

Supernatural Horror Drama Horror

Guests at an English estate recall nightmares.Guests at an English estate recall nightmares.Guests at an English estate recall nightmares.

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 wins & 2 nominations

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The film's U.S. distributor thought that it was too long; therefore, two of the five segments, "Christmas Party" and "Golfing Story", were both cut. This confused U.S. audiences, who could not understand at all what Michael Allen from "Christmas Party" was doing in the nightmare montage at the end of it. The two segments have since been restored to all U.S. releases of the film.

Goofs
As Peter Cortland stands looking into the mirror his wife-to-be has bought him, the stripes on his tie run from his left side down to his right. A reverse shot shows the stripes on his tie running in the same direction; obviously, this is not a mirror image.

Quotes
Hearse Driver: Just room for one inside, sir.

Alternate versions
The original UK version of this film was 105 minutes long and had five segments in it ("Hearse Driver", "Christmas Party", "Haunted Mirror", "Golfing Story" and "Ventriloquist's Dummy"). When it was originally released in the U.S., two of the five segments ("Christmas Party" and "Golfing Story") were cut to shorten it to 77 minutes because the distributor though that it was too long. Later re-releases of it in the U.S., such as the TV version and all of its home video releases, restored the two missing segments to their proper places in it.

Connections
Edited into Hackers (1995)

Soundtracks
The Hullalooba
Music by Anna Marly
Lyrics by Anna Marly
Sung by Elisabeth Welch with Frank Weir and his Sextet

Mervyn Johns a quite ordinary architect is summoned for a job by Roland Culver. As he drives up to Culver's house it's in the words of a great 20th century philosopher, deja vu all over again.

Culver's entertaining and Johns comes in and seems to know the people there. When Johns relates what he thinks is happening to him, the others start telling some paranormal tales of their own.

With Mervyn Johns's introductory story unifying the film, Dead Of Night now goes into five very engrossing short stories of some weird experiences that the guests have had. I'm not sure the introductory tale is needed, all five can certainly stand on their own as Gothic drama.

Although all the stories are good, by far the outstanding one involves Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist whose dummy seems to be taking on a life of its own. One of Culver's guests is psychiatrist Frederick Valk and he contributes this story as he was a consultant on this case. Is it schizophrenia or is that dummy really alive?

I also liked the episode with Sally Ann Howes as a young teenager at a costume party who befriends a young boy whom she sings to sleep with a lullaby. The boy played by Michael Allan had a perfect right to be in that house, but he's a most unwelcome guest at the party.

I might not have even had the linking story included in the film and let the stories stand on their own. But either way Dead Of Night is an engrossing Gothic drama.