Night People (1954) on Netflix
Cpl. John Leatherby, an American soldier in occupied Berlin, is abducted after walking his German girlfriend home. Lt. Col. Steve Van Dyke, the provost marshal, is pressed to bring him back.
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- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.5/101,845 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes75%
Trailer
Plot summary
Berlin, in the years after World War II, is a divided city under Allied occupation. Cpl. John Leatherby, an American soldier, disappears on his way back from seeing his German girlfriend home. His father, Charles Leatherby, an industrialist from Toledo with ties to the Eisenhower administration and to senators, flies to West Berlin and pushes State Department and military officials to move quickly, proposing a payment to the Soviets. Lt. Col. Steve Van Dyke, provost marshal for the American sector, hears from his former flame and East German source, "Hoffy" Hoffmeir. She suggests the captors want two West Berliners, Herr and Frau Schindler, handed over in return.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Night People (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Gregory Peck had contractual rights to veto the studio's choice of director, so Nunnally Johnson's hope of directing rested on him. Peck, a friend who had worked with him on The Gunfighter, approved Johnson for his directorial debut.
- Gregory Peck squabbled repeatedly with Fox staffers over costuming, and after one dispute he channeled his anger into the scene in which his character rebukes Broderick Crawford's, filming ten pages of script in two hours.
- Filming in divided Berlin was complicated by US-Soviet tensions: while shooting a scene near the Brandenburg Gate with realistic props, the crew came under close scrutiny from numerous armed Russians suspicious of the activity.
- In September 1953 The Hollywood Reporter said Gregory Peck and Nunnally Johnson had seriously feuded and that Henry Koster would replace Johnson; Darryl F. Zanuck flew to Munich and called the reports "greatly exaggerated".
- Nunnally Johnson said that Billy Wilder told him he admired the film and later reworked its basic situation in One, Two, Three.
