Dead of Night

Walter Craig arrives at a country cottage in Kent, where he is greeted by his host Elliot Foley. Craig is an architect whom Foley has invited to his home to consult on some renovations. Upon entering the sitting room of the cottage, Craig tells Foley and his assembled guests that, despite never having met any of them, he has seen them all in a recurring dream.

Craig appears to have no prior personal knowledge of them, but is able to predict events in the house before they unfold. Craig partially recalls that something awful will later occur. Dr. van Straaten, a psychologist, tries to persuade Craig that his fears are unfounded. The other guests attempt to test Craig's foresight and entertain each other with tales of strange events they experienced or were told about.

Racing car driver Hugh Grainger recalls lying in hospital after an accident. One night, the peripheral noises of the ward cease and the time on his bedside clock changes. He opens the curtains to see that it is daytime, and a horse-drawn hearse is parked outside. The hearse driver calls up, "just room for one inside, sir". After being discharged from the hospital, Grainger waits for a bus. The bus conductor, who exactly resembles the hearse driver, tells him, "just room for one inside, sir". Grainger does not board the bus. As it drives away, the bus swerves and plunges down an embankment.

Sally O'Hara remembers attending a Christmas party at a mansion. During a game of hide-and-seek, Sally hides behind a curtain and is found by Jimmy, who tells her of a murder that once happened in the mansion. She finds a door which leads to a nursery, where she hears a young boy, Francis Kent, weeping. She consoles him and tucks him into bed. When she returns to the main room, she is told Francis Kent was murdered by his sister Constance.

Joan Cortland tells of an incident in which she gave her husband Peter a mirror for his birthday one year. Upon looking into it, he sees himself in a room other than his own. Joan learns that the mirror's previous owner, Francis Etherington, killed his wife on a suspicion of adultery, before slitting his own throat in front of the mirror. Peter, too, accuses Joan of being unfaithful and attempts to strangle her, but she breaks the mirror, returning Peter to his normal mental state.

Foley recounts two golfers, George Parratt and Larry Potter, who both fell in love with a woman named Mary Lee. They decide to play a round of golf for Mary's hand in marriage. Parratt wins by cheating, and Potter drowns himself in a nearby lake. When he next plays golf, Parratt is interrupted by Potter's ghost. Potter demands he give up Mary or else he will continue to haunt him, but finds he has forgotten how to vanish. On the night of Parratt and Mary's wedding, Parratt unwittingly causes himself to vanish, leaving Potter the opportunity to charm Mary.

Dr. van Straaten recollects interviewing ventriloquist Maxwell Frere, who performed with a dummy named Hugo. Upon meeting American ventriloquist Sylvester Kee, Hugo continually speaks about abandoning Frere and working with Kee instead. Frere attempts to silence Hugo, but Hugo bites his hand, drawing blood. Some time later at a hotel bar, Hugo insults a woman, and Frere is blamed. Kee brings Frere and Hugo to Frere's hotel room, placing Hugo on Frere's bed. The next morning, Frere accuses Kee of stealing Hugo, and finds Hugo in Kee's room. He shoots Kee and is arrested. Van Straaten arranges for Hugo to be brought to Frere's cell, where they have an argument that ends in Frere suffocating and smashing Hugo. Later, in an asylum, Frere speaks with Hugo's voice.

In the country home, Craig strangles Dr. van Straaten. Craig then hallucinates about the stories told by the other guests, before awakening in his bedroom as a phone rings. He receives a call from Elliot Foley, inviting him to his country home to consult on some renovations. Craig's wife suggests that spending a weekend in the country might help him get rid of his nightmares. Craig then drives up to Foley's cottage in Kent as in the start of the film.

The film opened at the Gaumont Haymarket cinema in London on 9 September 1945.[3]

The circular plot of Dead of Night inspired Fred Hoyle's steady state model of the universe, developed in 1948.[9] Mario Livio in Brilliant Blunders cites the impact of a viewing of Dead of Night had on astrophysicists Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi, and Thomas Gold. "Gold asked suddenly, "What if the universe is like that?' meaning that the universe could be eternally circling on itself without beginning or end. Unable to dismiss this conjecture, they started to think seriously of an unchanging universe, a steady state universe.

The creation of the Batman villian Ventriloquist (character) is thought to have had inspiration from the dummy Hugo.

In the early 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films.[10] Dead of Night placed at number 35 on their top 100 list.[11] Director Martin Scorsese placed Dead of Night 5th on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.[12] Writer/director Christopher Smith was inspired by the circular narrative in Dead of Night when making his 2009 film Triangle.[13]

A shot of Redgrave from the film is featured on the cover of Merrie Land, an album by The Good, the Bad & the Queen.[14]

The theme of a recurring nightmare has been visited in other works and media:

• "Shadow Play", a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone television series
• "The Secret Miracle", a short story by Jorge Luis Borges that also contains a recurring nightmare inside a framing story

The theme of the mad ventriloquist and his dummy with a life of its own has been visited in other works and media:

• The Great Gabbo, a 1929 film starring Erich von Stroheim
• Knock on Wood (1954), a Danny Kaye musical comedy
• "The Glass Eye", a 1957 episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series, starring Jessica Tandy
• "The Dummy", a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone television series, starring Cliff Robertson
• "Caesar and Me", a 1964 episode of The Twilight Zone television series, starring Jackie Cooper
• Devil Doll, a 1964 film starring Bryant Haliday
• Magic, a 1978 film starring Anthony Hopkins
• It Couldn't Happen Here, a 1988 film by Pet Shop Boys
• The Ventriloquist and Scarface, a Batman enemy first appearing in 1988
• "The Puppet Show", a 1997 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Dead of Night, a 2003 art exhibition by collaborative duo Beagles & Ramsay
• Dead Silence, a 2007 film starring Judith Roberts and Donnie Wahlberg
• The Beaver, a 2011 film starring Mel Gibson.

The theme of the fatal crash premonition has also been visited in other works and media:

• "The Bus-Conductor", a short story by E. F. Benson published in The Pall Mall Magazine in 1906 which was the basis for the segment in Dead of Night
• Famous Ghost Stories, a 1944 anthology by Bennett Cerf which retells the Benson short story, but changes the main character to a woman and transfers the action to New York City
• "Twenty Two", a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone inspired by the Cerf story

The theme of a mirror casting a murderous spell has been visited in other works and media:

• "The Mirror", a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone
• "The Gatecrasher" segment from the 1974 Amicus Productions anthology film From Beyond the Grave

• List of ghost films

Wikiquote has quotations related to Dead of Night.

• Dead of Night at IMDb
• Dead of Night at the BFI's Screenonline
• Dead of Night at AllMovie
• Review of film at Variety
• Dead of Night at the TCM Movie Database
• Dead of Night at Rotten Tomatoes