They Met in the Dark

Lamač and his English years are something that still seems to be nonexistent, but when a projection comes around once in a while, it's followed by a collision with the ignorance of the work he had already made at the time. So how about embracing They Met in the Dark as another feel-good movie that works exactly as dozens of movies have worked before? Why make things difficult for ourselves by looking for noir at a time when it didn't exist yet, and making arguments about cosmopolitanism, which was already known before 1925, etc.? Lamač, on the other hand, is only completely non-violently reuniting what he has been doing all these decades. He simply coaxed a chatty blonde into the lead role, let her take a train ride under the pretext of a detective plot, walk through the environment of a dance café and enjoy the sight of an illusionist’s performance. Still not familiar to you? For twenty years, Lamač's headstrong blonde was Anny Ondra (and if she wasn't available, she had a whole cohort of substitutes to take her place). Lamač himself spent half his life on the train, having worked all over Europe (Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium... after the war, the USA and West Germany) and he aspired to become a prestidigitator before he fully embraced film. It’s nothing new under the sun. Just another piece of the popular Lamač puzzle. (2015.07.28)