"Nachts..." is the third movie of Siomak's "fourth "career ;a career that began in his native Germany ("Menschen am Sonntag" ) continued in France ("Mollenard Capitaine Corsaire" ) reached peaks of film noir in America ("the killers" )and ,back in Germany ,brought more remarkable works such as "Die Ratten" or "L'Affaire Nina B. " (made with French money).
"Nachts" is Siodmak at his most ambitious,a complex movie which demands your undivided attention.It's probably his finest hour in his final years at a time when he was living in his former homeland ,after the fall and before the wall.The Siodmak world is more than a world in ruins , a world that has lost its way and that has forgotten that it is in ruins.Helga and Axel do not understand that all they do is pointless from the very start :what's the point of finding a killer when millions of innocents are slaughtered ?Didn't they understand that their Aryan "race" is pure and that a serial killer is unthinkable ?Didn't they understand that the scapegoat is necessary for the others to go on? First the Jews ,then the gypsies ,the gays,the mentally retarded and the crippled ,and then a German ,a "normal" Aryan,Willi Keun? AS in "Desolation row" does "which side are you on? " matter when you're sailing on the Titanic?
"Nachts" predates such works as "nights of the general" (which was much inferior ,in spite a much more comfortable budget) by Litvak "Jagdzenen aus Niederbayern " by Peter Fleischman -the first scene has certainly influenced that director- and even Siodmak's own "Nina B".
"Nachts" showed that Siodmak was still a film noir past master: take the scene when Bruno (a sensational Mario Adorf) meets the Jewish lady in Frau Lehman's flat:it's a suspenseful scene to rival the best of Hitchcock.Axel's and Helga's desperate attempts to save an innocent was a subject Siodmak had already treated in his adaptation of William Irish (aka Cornell Woolrich)"Phantom Lady" .But the most extraordinary sequence is the "subjective flashback" in the forest where the killer relives what he did where the trees seem like bars of the prison of his mind.
"Nachts" was Siodmak at his most pessimistic :the train bound for "glory" slowly moving into the dark night as Axel mumbles " Bruno Luedke? what are you talking about? This man never was" .Such an ending anticipates that of Joseph Losey's "Mr Klein" (1975).Even if Siodmak "sweetens " his harsh final -he "saves " Helga-,the night has only begun....
"Nachts" is Siodmak at his most ambitious,a complex movie which demands your undivided attention.It's probably his finest hour in his final years at a time when he was living in his former homeland ,after the fall and before the wall.The Siodmak world is more than a world in ruins , a world that has lost its way and that has forgotten that it is in ruins.Helga and Axel do not understand that all they do is pointless from the very start :what's the point of finding a killer when millions of innocents are slaughtered ?Didn't they understand that their Aryan "race" is pure and that a serial killer is unthinkable ?Didn't they understand that the scapegoat is necessary for the others to go on? First the Jews ,then the gypsies ,the gays,the mentally retarded and the crippled ,and then a German ,a "normal" Aryan,Willi Keun? AS in "Desolation row" does "which side are you on? " matter when you're sailing on the Titanic?
"Nachts" predates such works as "nights of the general" (which was much inferior ,in spite a much more comfortable budget) by Litvak "Jagdzenen aus Niederbayern " by Peter Fleischman -the first scene has certainly influenced that director- and even Siodmak's own "Nina B".
"Nachts" showed that Siodmak was still a film noir past master: take the scene when Bruno (a sensational Mario Adorf) meets the Jewish lady in Frau Lehman's flat:it's a suspenseful scene to rival the best of Hitchcock.Axel's and Helga's desperate attempts to save an innocent was a subject Siodmak had already treated in his adaptation of William Irish (aka Cornell Woolrich)"Phantom Lady" .But the most extraordinary sequence is the "subjective flashback" in the forest where the killer relives what he did where the trees seem like bars of the prison of his mind.
"Nachts" was Siodmak at his most pessimistic :the train bound for "glory" slowly moving into the dark night as Axel mumbles " Bruno Luedke? what are you talking about? This man never was" .Such an ending anticipates that of Joseph Losey's "Mr Klein" (1975).Even if Siodmak "sweetens " his harsh final -he "saves " Helga-,the night has only begun....