Somebody at Universal-International had a good, fresh idea for a psychologically-based murder thriller — but was the studio system not conducive to creative experimentation? Ray Danton and Colleen Miller put their all into a story that feels like a rough draft for Psycho, with a main character doing his best to be ‘normal’ yet prey to his own uncontrollable impulses. Horror fans will want to catch up with this one, just to better understand the development of the genre. The Malibu locations feel familiar — and the murder takes place in a Motel. It’s one film in a three-title boxed set.

The Night Runner
in the boxed set “Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema XIII”
Blu-ray
KL Studio Classics
1957 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 79 min. / Street Date May 2, 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: Ray Danton, Colleen Miller, Merry Anders, Willis Bouchey, Harry Jackson, Robert Anderson, Jean Inness, Eddy Waller, John Stephenson, Alexander Campbell, Natalie Masters, Richard H. Cutting.
Cinematography: George Robinson
Art Directors: Alexander Golitzen, Robert Boyle
Film Editor: Albrecht Joseph
Written by Gene Levitt from the Cosmopolitan short story by Owen Cameron
Produced by Albert J. Cohen
Directed by Abner Biberman

At the moment this disc is available only in a 3-disc set — but let’s single it out, just to exercise the old film school neurons still loitering in my brain. Some caution needs to be observed. When assembling the puzzle pieces of film history, it’s too easy to pounce upon false ’cause-effect’ assumptions. It’s natural to think that something in one film ‘inspired’ something in another. We all felt certain that the car chase in The French Connection was a conscious attempt to one-up a chase in the earlier Bullitt. In that case the guess was good — the director confirmed it himself.

But that’s the exception. Most of the time it’s wiser to just note a perceived pattern, and say ‘maybe.’  Nothing’s worse than to claim that Movie A directly influenced Movie B . . . and then learn that Movie A was actually made several years afterwards.

Do we ever learn?  When we came across the movie being reviewed here, lights and bells of recognition went off — it really seems like a rough draft for a notable cinema masterpiece made two years later. Is there any value to pointing this out, or is the whole thing just an academic game?  How analytical can a genre study get, before it’s time to say ‘they’re only movies’ and look for a new fixation?

The Horror of Personality.

The old magazine Cinefantastique had an eccentric publisher-editor and a few flaky contributors, but it was also a rare source for all things horror and sci-fi. It and the ‘zine Photon almost always had a serious article or two worth consideration. A very early issue (Volume 3 Number 3) of Cinefantastique carried a piece by Charles Derry that struck a chord: The Horror of Personality. Derry called out and named an entire wing of horror film that leaned in the direction of thriller realism, especially sordid murder stories about people who may be insane, or who commit ‘meaningless’ killings. Derry later expanded his thesis into a 1977 book, since updated.

The watershed film in Derry’s Horror of Personality thesis is Hitchcock’s Psycho. The new kind of horror in the HOP formula comes not from a gothic curse or something supernatural, but everyday reality. People are unknowable, especially when we learn of awful crimes by individuals deemed Normal, that don’t signal their malign intentions or nature. They may be motivated by a Freudian flaw,  a guilt-driven derangement, or by  something unexplainable, an existential mystery.

Derry’s HOP category seems an outgrowth of ’40s  psychological films, in which mysteries, films noir, etc., complicated murder with motivations beyond simple greed, jealousy or violent passion. The movie list in Derry’s 1972 article is rather short, even though he includes movies that don’t really qualify for the category. It doesn’t include earlier crazy villains imported from pulp literature — mad doctors, all-purpose deranged maniacs, etc.. With its examples of ordinary madness next door, the essay encouraged us to look for more examples of ‘proto- HOP’ filmmaking.

At the time, two discoveries in particular seemed to fit the bill. One is Richard Dix’s calmly murderous sea captain Will Stone in Val Lewton’s The Ghost Ship. At first we’re reminded of Jack London’s Wolf Larsen, but they’re really not the same: Captain Stone knows he’s a mad murderer, but he can’t help himself. Stone sincerely confesses his problem to the woman he loves, but nothing makes any difference.

– – – –

The other title is Universal-International’s The Night Runner from 1957. Not a major release, it’s a fairly lackluster, morose little drama filmed on the back lot and also on the coast in Malibu. It was filmed in B&W and has no stars. Its little story works its unhappy way to a downbeat ending. Some reviewers praised The Night Runner’s serious approach to a social problem, without suggesting that it constituted a satisfying night out at the movies. British Sunday Express critic Clive Herschhorn called it

“A thoroughly disagreeable little ‘B’ whose cast does little to enhance its tawdry status.”

That’s not exactly encouragement to grab the kids and head to the drive-in. The Night Runner seems to have ended up serving mostly as a second feature bill-filler . . . a fate pretty much shared by Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, made by U-I a year later.

Marketed as a Woman In Danger thriller, The Night Runner begins as a fairly dry social issue movie. “Are Mental Patients Turned Loose too Soon?” asks the tagline, when the only reasonable answer is, “the ones that kill people, yes.” What now interests us about the film is that a few of its particulars remind us of the Robert Bloch / Joseph Stefano / Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece Psycho.

At sunny California’s Woodvale State Hospital, the case of psych patient Roy Turner (Ray Danton) comes up for review. The cautious doctors want to keep Turner for six more months, as he was diagnosed as a violent schizophrenic. Crowding in the facility instead forces Roy’s early release. He’s sent on his way with nothing more than some uneasy advice: Avoid Stress. Turner is a professional draftsman, but panics during questioning by an employment clerk and almost starts trouble a man on the sidewalk outside. He drifts by bus to the beach town of Seaport. Friendly mechanic Hank Hansen (Harry Jackson) steers Roy to a nearby motel. On the way he’s stopped by California Highway Patrolman Ed Wallace (Robert Anderson). Ed only asks if Roy needs help, but Roy again feels cornered and hostile.

Motel owner Loren Mayes (Willis Bouchey) is concerned when his daughter Susan (Colleen Miller) strikes up a friendship with Roy, who ‘has no background’ and isn’t presently employed. Finding Susan painting on the beach, Roy is able to open up to her and explain his troubled childhood. His anxieties wane as Susan expresses serious feelings and Hank helps him apply for a job. Susan had been seeing Ed on a casual basis, but no conflict arises — Ed respects Susan and is ready to accept her romantic choice.

Just as Roy receives great job news Loren discovers his secret, catches him alone and demands that he leave immediately. It’s too much for Roy’s psychotic condition . . . and something awful happens at the Mayes Motel. It seems a senseless tragedy. Hank Hansen and his wife Amy (Merry Anders of The Time Travelers)  ↓   come to Susan’s emotional support. Only slowly do the cracks in Roy’s story begin to show. Once again placed under stress, he goes into a stealth defensive / aggressive mode. Why must these things happen to him?

Did contractees Rock Hudson, Jeff Chandler and George Nader all take a pass on Roy Turner?

Handsome Ray Danton was a U-I contract player; it’s possible that he was tapped for the role because George Nader turned it down. Actor-turned director Abner Biberman directs with restraint, working for a relaxed everyday quality for Roy’s socializing with a new group of friends. All the performances are professional, with a touch of ‘sensitive.’ Turner is sympathetic but a little superficial, He’s a really nice guy — who keeps freaking out when things don’t go well.

Neither Danton nor Biberman dig deep into the script or the character. At this level of factory filmmaking, lower-tier directors weren’t asked to  interpret the material. They may have been assigned to the project just days before shooting began. Producer Albert J. Cohen (Unknown Island, Sign of the Pagan) was tasked with delivering 80 minutes of acceptable screen fare on a budget with little wiggle room. You don’t monkey with details when one bad day of beach weather could ruin everything. If dailies showed up that diverged from the script, Biberman might have been quietly replaced.

Film noir authority Alain Silver praised Ray Danton’s choice not to employ facial tics or giveaway mannerisms, to telegraph a disturbed mind at work. Avoiding theatrical gimmicks is a good way to go, but it doesn’t help us to build more sympathy for Roy. His personality has no rudder, and that’s that.

It’s interesting that the State mental health system sets Turner loose with so little preparation to cope with the outside world. When the employment people ask where he has been the last two years, he clicks into panic mode.  ^*  Roy is charming under normal conditions but dangerous when stressed. Nobody realizes what a threat he is, least of all himself. We don’t think, ‘Gee, if everyone treated Roy nicely all would be good.’  We instead think, “He’s a lit fuse. If Susan can’t see it, she’s not too bright either.”

Danton may have thought the unusual role had breakout potential. Anthony Perkins found that becoming the screen’s most famous madman did little for his career going forward. Willis Bouchey specialized in narrow-minded authority figures. It’s no wonder that his overprotective Loren Mayes slams the door on Roy without giving him a chance to explain. If that didn’t set Roy off, something else would have soon enough. Bright-faced and optimistic Colleen Miller keeps the film’s spirits afloat. If this were an average 1957 picture, true love would cure Roy’s problem … are Gidget and Tammy just down the beach, busy with their respective boyfriends?

Did the screenwriters have something to express about average (white) folk in the booming 1950s?  Guys like Hank, Ed and maybe Roy are content with peace and security and the opportunity to raise a family. They were kids in the economically stagnant 1930s. Many were happy to have survived combat in WW2, or Korea. Roy’s drafting skill might easily win him a job at a salary to afford a car and buy a house. Many ’50s movies idealize this time of plenty, and TV families were depicted as even more affluent and stylish. The message to the rest of the suffering world was clear: America is heaven.

We’re impressed by the downbeat, nonviolent finale, but the movie sidesteps dramatic opportunities between Roy and Susan. We want to see them interact after the big reveal,  but Susan remains unconscious, in a convenient fainting spell. Roy Turner is instead given a symbolic motivation in the form of an ironic twist: a pet seagull from his past intervenes just when he’s about to do something terrible.

Hmmm … Roy Turner’s violent psychosis has something to do with birds . . . (whisper) just like Norman Bates.

True, every concordance between The Night Runner and Psycho is offset by 3 things that aren’t the same. We’re arrested by the setting of a small Motel  in the off-season but the storylines are not that similar. There is no sexual component to the killings, and no split personality issue. The one similar action scene is Roy’s clean-up after a killing, removing evidence and making the crime look like robbery. Unlike the high-achieving serial killer Norman Bates, Roy Turner’s attempt to hide his crime is a complete bust. Calculating sex perverts are tough to catch, while nice-guy maladjusteds  like Roy trip up at every turn.

Author Robert Bloch published his book Psycho in 1959. He disavowed any influence from or connection to the infamous Ed Gein, despite many points of equivalence. Bloch could have seen The Night Runner but the only similarities are the motel setting, the bird connection, the clean-up scene and the fact that both Roy Turner and Norman Bates spent time in mental institutions. Why stop the cause and effect game there?  Janet Leigh was terrorized in a motel in Touch of Evil before becoming the immortal victim Marion Crane in Psycho. And the movie with a shower scene most similar to Hitchcock’s is Val Lewton’s The Seventh Victim, way back in 1943.

If we really want to play the dangerous game of assigning influence, the bona fide template for Psycho’s most ‘original’ idea — Norman’s weird personality transference — is one of the stories in the classic Brit horror omnibus Dead of Night. It’s not merely similar, it’s identical.

None of that deters a middling film student who thinks he has an original thought. Abner Biberman’s movie labors under constraints that prevent it from becoming anything more than lower-end studio output — yet it still feels like a proto- Psycho. Heck, Ray Danton looks like a morph between Anthony Perkins and John Gavin . . .

The KL Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Night Runner is a pristine, perfect new HD encoding that brings out the camerawork of George Robinson, an industry veteran who started in 1917, worked everywhere and in the 1940s became a reliable fill-in talent at Universal: The Mummy’s Tomb,  Jack and the Beanstalk,  Tarantula.

The film has U-I’s clean, better-than-TV look. The show doesn’t prioritize economy over everything. The CinemaScope format is used fairly well, especially on location at Malibu beach. The scenes among the surfside rocks, with Susan and Roy (and stunt people?) performing as waves crash in around them, do not look easy to film.

As linked above, The Night Runner is one feature in a three-title boxed set in Kino’s Noir series Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema XIII, with the features Spy Hunt (1950) and Step Down to Terror (1958, also with Colleen Miller).

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Night Runner
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Good + / –
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary by Lee Gambin and Dr. Eloise Ross
Trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: October 11, 2023
(7009runn)

^*  It’s more than a little ironic that Governor Reagan would dismantle much of the State’s mental hospital system in favor of Privatization, leaving thousands of mental patients with no place to go. Many now burden our overtaxed law enforcement agencies.

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