VividSimon Simply Perfect

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

davidcarniglia A good noir thriller with a neat gimmick. Edmund O'Brien's Steve, part of an armored car robbery gang, gets caught, but he's paroled to a hospital for experimental surgery. He subsequently loses his memory. This cleverly sets up the archetypal noir hero's sense of alienation from society.For once in her noir career, Audrey Totter's character is sympathetic. As Steve's girlfriend, she starts out unconcerned about his fate, but, as she realizes what happened to him, her love for him outpaces her greed for the missing loot.The pacing keeps the plot moving at a pretty good clip. At first I thought the bumper car chase was silly, the cops gliding around in formation--as if on parade. And, from such close range, they should've been able to nail Steve. But then I remembered that Steve was having a nightmare. The mixing of memories and dreams with the main plot adds more and more, building into the palpably grotesque atmosphere of the amusement park. This long sequence is cooly spun into a quick finish. Steve 'squares' himself with the police, and he and Peg can finally have each other. The 3-D effects would probably look pretty cool in a theater. They happen quickly and don't detract much. But the trio of bad guys with goofy nicknames could've used more than the two-dimensional treatment that they're given. As a result, the middle of the movie does drag a bit, as they try to sweat out the whereabouts of the money from Steve.They can't be so dumb not to realize that he really doesn't know much about the past; why else would he have been on parole to have a mysterious operation as well as a new identity? Aside from dangling those chumps into the plot, Man In the Dark works relentlessly to keep our attention, and ultimately to bring O'Brien and Totter together. Along the way, the viewer's treated to a sort of noir Christmas.

MartinHafer Edmond O'Brien played in quite a few film noir pictures. And, interestingly, they all seem to be excellent...even "Man in the Dark" which you would expect to be a bad picture even WITH O'Brien. Why? Because the film was cranked out in only 11 days AND because there were a lot of cheap 3D tricks in the picture...yet it still turned out to be very, very good. So why would the studio do this in 11 days? Apparently, 3D movies were brand new and they wanted to be the first major studio to make a 3D picture....yet, amazingly, the film doesn't seem rushed or second-rate!When the story begins, a prisoner (O'Brien) is about to undergo some surgery. When he awakens, he has no memory of who he was and is christened 'Steve Rawley' by the doctors. Unfortunately, his old gang doesn't know about the purpose of the surgery--they just know they've got to kidnap him and tell them where he stashed the loot from a robbery. But he really does NOT know where it is nor who he was. His only clues are strange dreams he's been having. Could they point him to the right direction before the gang decides just to kill him and be done with it?As usual, Edmond O'Brien is great. He's tough, mouthy and just the sort of ugly mug you'd expect in a noir picture. And, having Audrey Totter and Ted de Corsia in supporting roles sure didn't hurt! Overall, a nice viewing experience...even with all the 3D gimmicks and use of rear projection towards the end (which I normally hate because it looks so fake).

Michael Klein I recently watched Bluray's 3D release of this for home theaters. Well, when I saw it was directed by Columbia workhorse Lew Landers, I sort of knew instinctively this was NOT going to be a film that could potentially be confused with something directed by say, John Huston. Yes, I was right! Edmond O'Brien is his usually sturdy self (just a year away from winning an Oscar for "The Barefoot Contessa") and any flick with Ted DeCorsia benefits greatly from his menacing presence). The somewhat convoluted plot is made slightly more credible by the earnest cast and swift direction by Landers, but does lag at times.There's a chase on the rooftops between O'Brien and the cops and somehow I just couldn't picture the somewhat stout O'Brien leaping from about from roof to roof and scurrying up and down fire escapes without winding up being on a respirator at the Hollywood Hospital after completing the scenes.Another aspect that confused the heck out of me is O'Brien's flashbacks detailing how he was finally apprehended by the police. There seems to be two versions flash backed, both entirely different.As for the 3D, there is a somewhat startling shot of the surgeons' heads looming in a circle over the camera (methinks Landers used this same composition for a scene in "The Raven", a 1935 horror film he directed with Lugosi and Karloff) and some other nice touches, although the "gag" sequences (i.e., things thrown at the audience) don't always come off well (admittedly, these gags probably worked best on the big screen, not on a 3D television).For example, the goons and O'Brien visit his old house, which has been abandoned and boarded up. Making their way through the cobwebs and dust inside, we are treated to what was either a bird, or a bat, or a hand towel flying out of the screen (it was just BOGUS whatever it was--well, the rubber spider pulled on a string effect, which made the animation on "Gumby" look like "Jurassic Park", was rather jarring as well).The highlight of the film is definitely the climax taking place at an amusement park, but I somehow felt they could have made more use of the location, particularly with the advantage of filming in 3D.A fairly good little film, particularly if you are able to see it as it was originally presented.PS: Not related to the film, but to the Bluray release, as this was not a major movie by Columbia in any way, perhaps they should have added one of Columbia's Three Stooges shorts, namely "Spooks!", which was filmed in 3D. Who knows? Perhaps it did appear on the bill with "Man in the Dark" originally!

paluska Originally made in 3-D, this is another of Columbia's black & white releases of this genre (like Vincent Price in the Mad Magician). 3-D process and numerous subjective camera techniques (like scapels used in operation coming out at the screen, bullets firing at speeding cars, whirling around car rides at an amusement park, etc.)make this interesting viewing and out of the ordinary story about a thug who can't remember anything about his $130,000 heist after brain surgery.