The Fritz Lang adaptation of a Clifford Odets play sits at the crossroads of film noir, contemporary realism, and independent filmmaking. Clash By Night is filmed primarily on location, with much of factual detail of the activities of a tiny town’s fishing fleet and cannery.
It has some neo-realistic influence, attempting to match the lyrical reality of Odets’ language. May Doyle (Barbara Stanwyck), who has been roaming the vast globe hoping to attach herself to grandeur and came near in a relationship with a married politician whose postmortem gift to her was taken back by his family, returns to this pretty-appearing but fish-funky village.
Joe (male mannequin Paul Andes, making his acting debut) works on a fishing boat and has a girlfriend named Peggy (Marilyn Monroe, thankfully unglamorous as a small-town pretty girl).
He isn’t thrilled to see his sister return, but he allows her to return to the family home. May is soon smitten with Jerry D’Amato (Paul Douglas), the skipper of Joe’s yacht, who lives with his Italian father (Silvio Minciotti) and uncle Vince (J. Carrol Naish at his sleaziest).
Earl Pfeiffer (Robert Ryan), a dour, misanthropic, hot movie projectionist whose wife has gone off and who detects in May a fellow sexual nomad, is Jerry’s closest buddy. Earl’s florid sadness, on the other hand, attracts and repels May, who instead selects Jerry’s stolid charms as a chance for safe harbour – at least for the time being. It goes without saying that hilarity does not ensue.
Clash By Night may seem noir, but it is more concerned with the emotional shifts between the three major characters than with melodrama. Ryan’s Earl, an emotional predator who plays the clown for his pal Jerry to disguise both his poison and his sincere need for connection, is particularly gripping.
Earl veers from morbid self-pity to irritatingly vulgar to shallow to reckless to alluring to sensitive to hardened and aggressive to nearly sobbing in fear of rejection in a show-stopping performance. Douglas is also excellent, as is Stanwyck, though her “big” moments have a fake sameness to them while she’s far better at low pitch, playing her typical role of a lady whose hard-boiled skin hides a tender soul.
