Somewhere in the Night (Joseph L. Manciewicz, 1946)

How had I never heard of this film before? It might not be in the absolute first rank of noirs – it did come out the same year as The Big Sleep which is about as demanding as competition gets – but it's very good indeed. Some splendid cinematography, very fine performances from some faces that were to become familiar, and a suitably convoluted plot. The amnesia theme may seem rather well-trodden, but it's effectively used, especially in a remarkable scene between John Hodiak and Elizabeth Conroy in which, to begin with, its is being recognised that proves profoundly bewildering for the protagonist, but is then followed by a denial ("You don't know me, don't worry – I never saw you before, I lied") which, diegetically, is emotionally motivated but gains in intensity for the audience because we can't at first be entirely sure that we're not meant to take it literally (is she, too, in the pay of the villains?). Certainly at the end things become a little gratuitously twisty, and gathering everybody in the same room is uncomfortably Agatha Christie (although this device is at least undercut somewhat so it doesn't undermine the film the way it does The Blue Dahlia), but on the whole everything is adroitly handled; some details that appear superfluous (the facial bandages at the beginning; a certain character's past as a private eye) become neater in retrospect. There are some very fine versions of some staple locations such as working class housing (with a very funny sequence of dialogue on the doorstep) and a sinister sanatorium. There's also a good level of self-aware humour (comments about detectives' hats and about lighting; the line "Oh, we're having repartee, are we?") that show how quickly the genre – if it is a genre – was able to satirise itself (which is to say pretty much immediately) but that are lightly enough handled not to become too arch or smugly knowing. Well worth tracking down.