Home Before Dark

Posted by Jenniffer Sheldon on Thursday, April 18, 2024

Home before Dark should give the Kleenex a vigorous workout. Based on one woman's battle to regain her slipping sanity, it is a romantic melodrama of considerable power and imprint.

Home before Dark should give the Kleenex a vigorous workout. Based on one woman’s battle to regain her slipping sanity, it is a romantic melodrama of considerable power and imprint.

The screenplay, based on Eileen Bassing’s novel of the same name, sometimes seems rather skimpy in its character motivation. It is also difficult at times to understand the mental tone of the mentally ill heroine (Jean Simmons). But while the tale is unfolding it is made so gripping that factual discrepancies are relatively unimportant.

Simmons is the wife of Dan O’Herlihy, who has ceased to love her before mental breakdown and has not changed his attitude on her recovery. Living in their home, to which she returns on her release from hospitalization, are her stepmother (Mabel Albertson) and her stepsister (Rhonda Fleming). They are masterful females who could drive anyone to the edge of madness.

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Her only real ally in the house is a stranger (Efrem Zimbalist Jr), who is also an alien in the setting of the inbred New England college community. Zimbalist is the only Jewish member of the faculty, and ostensibly a protege of O’Herlihy’s.

The whole picture is seen from Simmons’ viewpoint, which means she is ‘on’ virtually the whole time. Her voice is a vibrant instrument, used with thoughtful articulation and placement, the only vital part of her at times.

Joseph Biroc’s photography is suited to the grim New England atmosphere. It is winter, a depressingly gray winter, and the locations in Massachusetts give the picture the authentic feel.

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Home Before Dark

  • Production: Warner. Dir Mervyn LeRoy; Producer Mervyn LeRoy; Screenplay Eileen Bassing, Robert Bassing; Camera Joseph F. Biroc; Editor Philip W. Anderson; Music Franz Waxman Art Dir John Beckman
  • Crew: (B&W) Extract of a review from 1958. Running time: 137 MIN.
  • With: Jean Simmons Dan O'Herlihy Rhonda Fleming Efrem Zimbalist Jr Mabel Albertson Steve Dunne

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