***SPOILERS*** The movie "The Long Night" starts with nightclub magician Maximilian, Vincent Price, getting blasted as he falls down two fights of stairs right in front of blinded US Marine vet Frank Dunlap, Elisha Cook Jr. As it turns out Maximilian got blown away by Joe Adams, Henry Fonda, whom he paid a visit in his one room apartment at the Travelers Hotel.
As the police surround the hotel and try to take Joe Adams into custody we get this long flashback in what happened that lead up to Maximilian getting rubbed out. We see in retrospect that Joe was involved romantically with flower girl Jo Ann, Barbara Del Grebbs, whom he met, delivering flowers, in the power plant that he works at as a sandblaster. As it turned out both Joe and Jo Ann were orphans and spent their formative years at the local Good Shepard Orphanage.
As things started heating up for the two lovebirds, Joe & Jo Ann, Maximilian suddenly dropped in-at the local nightclub "The Jungle"- and started to make a play for the very shy and sensitive Jo Ann. This lead Joe, in feeling that Jo Ann was two timing him, to get involved with Maximilian's former sidekick and assistant in his magic act Charlene, Ann Dvorak. Being the sensitive type himself, like Jo Ann, in not knowing whom his birth parents really are Joe in later having a mournful Maximilian confront him at a local diner is shocked to find out that Jo Ann is actually his, Maximilian's, daughter whom he abandoned at birth! The movie then goes from one flashback to another, and at one point even having a flashback within a flashback, where we and Joe find out what a first class BS artist Maximilian really is.
It soon becomes evident that Maximilian is putting on an act to both confuse Joe and get into Jo Ann, who's as much his daughter as Joe is his son, pants! It's when Jo Ann tries to break off her relationship with the very determined and overbearing Maximilian that he goes to Joe's apartment and what happens there is whet we just got a glimpse off, with Maxiamilian getting blown away, what happened at the start of the film.
In between the flashbacks, with Joe bearing his soul in the mess he got himself into, we have Joe holed up in his apartment holding off the entire city police force. It's only when Joe realizes that he's not alone in the world with Jo Ann and almost the entire town, in him being such a nice guy, coming to his defense that not only the cops but Joe himself cease firing giving himself a chance, in gunning down an unarmed man, to later prove his innocence in a court of law!
***SPOILERS***You couldn't really feel that sorry for Joe in that not only did he put himself the local police as well as dozens of peoples lives, including Jo Ann, in jeopardy he acted like a real jerk in making himself out as the victim, in order to gain sympathy, in this whole scenario which in fact he wasn't. Talking about his experiences in the war and how he killed people in the defense of his country rang a bit hollow in his gunning down the totally helpless Maximilian who in fact handed him the gun that Joe shot and killed him with! Even though the movie ended with Joe giving himself up and looking like a hero, in gunning down an unarmed man?, we never got to see what the jury at his trial , after reviewing all the evidence in the case, final verdict was!
As the police surround the hotel and try to take Joe Adams into custody we get this long flashback in what happened that lead up to Maximilian getting rubbed out. We see in retrospect that Joe was involved romantically with flower girl Jo Ann, Barbara Del Grebbs, whom he met, delivering flowers, in the power plant that he works at as a sandblaster. As it turned out both Joe and Jo Ann were orphans and spent their formative years at the local Good Shepard Orphanage.
As things started heating up for the two lovebirds, Joe & Jo Ann, Maximilian suddenly dropped in-at the local nightclub "The Jungle"- and started to make a play for the very shy and sensitive Jo Ann. This lead Joe, in feeling that Jo Ann was two timing him, to get involved with Maximilian's former sidekick and assistant in his magic act Charlene, Ann Dvorak. Being the sensitive type himself, like Jo Ann, in not knowing whom his birth parents really are Joe in later having a mournful Maximilian confront him at a local diner is shocked to find out that Jo Ann is actually his, Maximilian's, daughter whom he abandoned at birth! The movie then goes from one flashback to another, and at one point even having a flashback within a flashback, where we and Joe find out what a first class BS artist Maximilian really is.
It soon becomes evident that Maximilian is putting on an act to both confuse Joe and get into Jo Ann, who's as much his daughter as Joe is his son, pants! It's when Jo Ann tries to break off her relationship with the very determined and overbearing Maximilian that he goes to Joe's apartment and what happens there is whet we just got a glimpse off, with Maxiamilian getting blown away, what happened at the start of the film.
In between the flashbacks, with Joe bearing his soul in the mess he got himself into, we have Joe holed up in his apartment holding off the entire city police force. It's only when Joe realizes that he's not alone in the world with Jo Ann and almost the entire town, in him being such a nice guy, coming to his defense that not only the cops but Joe himself cease firing giving himself a chance, in gunning down an unarmed man, to later prove his innocence in a court of law!
***SPOILERS***You couldn't really feel that sorry for Joe in that not only did he put himself the local police as well as dozens of peoples lives, including Jo Ann, in jeopardy he acted like a real jerk in making himself out as the victim, in order to gain sympathy, in this whole scenario which in fact he wasn't. Talking about his experiences in the war and how he killed people in the defense of his country rang a bit hollow in his gunning down the totally helpless Maximilian who in fact handed him the gun that Joe shot and killed him with! Even though the movie ended with Joe giving himself up and looking like a hero, in gunning down an unarmed man?, we never got to see what the jury at his trial , after reviewing all the evidence in the case, final verdict was!