borrow a the title of nicholas christopher study of film noir and the american city and somewhere in the night remain a movie less familiar than laura or the big sleep or out of the past . but it almost in their class an atmospheric and at time archetypal noir and the first directorial effort of joseph l. mankiewicz and the first major post war feature to use the device of amnesia a metaphor represent how vet survive global cataclysm only to have to construct new life in a homeland that have and in their absence and turn into alien territory . drift up out of coma in a military hospital and john hodiak can not figure out why everybody call him george taylor . only two letter offer clue to who he be and one from a vindictive girl he ditch and the other apparently from an old pal and larry cravat . without much to go on and he head to los angeles to track down cravat and thus himself . but a he skulk though the city dark demimonde ( turkish bath and mob up nightclub and phony spiritualist parlor and insane asylum ) and he quick to learn that other people do not want cravat find . yet he find ally in club canary nancy guild and her bos richard conte and and police detective lloyd nolan . he also find that the reason for all the violence unleash against and around him be $ 2 million in nazi money ( which disappear in 1942 and the year he join the marine ) . cravat prove both elusive and uncomfortably close . somewhere in the night boast a strong cast in support ( conte and nolan and fritz kortner ) and even tertiary role ( sheldon leonard and whit bissell and henry morgan and with special mention to josephine hutchinson and who play a poignant largo midway though the movie ) . where it offer scant measure be in it principal . 20th century fox be groom guild a it answer to warner sultry sensation lauren bacall and fail to grasp that guild appeal be less romantic than matey the gal pal ( like a couple of other nancy from that era and olson and davis ) . hodiak more problematic . he enjoy a few year in the hollywood limelight ( lifeboat and marriage be a private affair and desert fury and command decision ) before his untimely death in 1955. but he never bring the illumination the star quality to his work that would elevate it from the competent to the classic . so he stay generic through his picaresque ordeal and without the specific anguish that distinguish and for example and john payne or even gordon macrae and edmond obrien a they undergo theirs ( in and respectively and the crooked way and backfire and d. o. a . ) . mankiewicz first go a director come a a surprise . most vividly remember a writer or director of a letter to three wife and the immortal all about eve ( movie whose sparkle script camouflage their lack of visual interest ) and he generate a menacing look in his nightscapes for the city of angel and camp out in bunker hill walk ups and on skid row . the storyline almost as complicate a the big sleep and and a murky and but then clockwork plot never sit well in film noir the universe it dwell in stay random and volatile and unfathomable .