Dave sidles up to a sturdy made-for-TV thriller that took a while to reach the screen.

In The Dagger of the Mind – the excellent online mystery journal that frequently focused on radio plays – they dubbed Lucille Fletcher as ‘Radio’s First Queen of Screams’. It’s an accurate moniker for the Brooklyn born writer: Fletcher penned a wealth of audio dramas in the ‘40s before parlaying her success into a career as a novelist, which lasted until her death at the turn of the millennium. Two of her dramas are etched into lore, evolving from their aural beginnings into television and film adaptations.

The Hitch-Hiker was scripted and performed for The Orson Welles Show on CBS Radio in 1941, and featured a chilling score by Fletcher’s then husband, Bernard Herrmann. Two decades later it was remade for the small screen, where it became one of the most memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone’s debut season.

Sorry, Wrong Number, meanwhile, made its bow on the long-running Suspense series in 1943. Welles himself was said to have christened it “the greatest single radio script ever written”. Five years later, Fletcher herself adapted it into a fantastic film noir that nabbed Barbara Stanwyck an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

In terms of THE NIGHTMAN, however, its journey was more arduous.

The Night Man (two words) was first broadcast in Suspense’s half hour slot on 26^th October 1944. A taut and unsettling thriller with a riveting lead performance by Virginia Bruce, it was poised to roll before cameras on several occasions after earning its place as a favourite of producing icon Hal B. Willis (Casablanca (1942)). Various adaptations were done – by James Poe (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)) and then by Gavin Lambert (Avalanche (1978)) – but it was only when an associate of legendary showrunner John Wells stumbled across the former’s draft in a library at USC that the rights were acquired and its near fifty-year journey was complete.

Dr. Maggie Rose (Jenny Robertson) is convinced that the handyman in her condo (Ted Marcoux) is a recently released ex-con by the name of Tom Wolffe who was sent down for the murder of her mother, Eve (Joanna Kerns), eighteen years earlier. Much of the movie is relayed in flashback, and we become privy to the knowledge that the good-looking Tom, recently discharged from the army, gets a job as the night manager at the Lakeview Hotel, a welcoming establishment run by Mrs. Rose senior. Well, there’s very little that’s senior about either of them. Eve is thirty-six, Maggie is seventeen, and Tom is somewhere between the two – in more ways than one – as a taboo love triangle spirals into cunning, seduction, and corrupted innocence.

“When we showed critics The Nightman, we had to give them a towel,” bragged the Don LaFontaine voiceover on a TV spot ahead of the telepic’s March 1992 airdate on NBC. Apparently it was to cope with the steaminess of the feature, as opposed to a remedy any inclination for an intermission shave. Such a boast is, of course, over-egged a touch – but it doesn’t diminish the power of what is, by and large, a sweaty and impressive slice of Southern Gothic.

Set and shot in Georgia, in adapting Poe’s take on the source material, Wells’ version is far removed from a boarding house in WW2-era NYC. In saying that, there’s a lot in Wells’ twist that’s fresh to the story, the flashbacks in particular. Generally, they work well – although they’re so lengthy that it feels like there’s an imbalance between them and the present day strand.

Marcoux is the real find among the ensemble. Perfectly suited for noir, The Nightman was his debut feature role, having wowed audiences on Broadway with his part in A Few Good Men. Kerns, on the other hand, had come straight from the wholesome set of Growing Pains and adapts to the seductive air of this sexually charged thriller with ease, dovetailing opposite on-screen daughter Robertson.

The brooding solemnity of Gary Chang’s score is a win, as are the stylistic flourishes of actor-turned-director Charles Haid. There are flaws for sure – like how a telegraphed ‘surprise’ reveals itself, and the way the film nearly runs out of steam in the final reel. But, considering its long gestation and general air of quality, The Nightman is too interesting to leave neglected.

USA ● 1992 ● Thriller, TVM ● 96mins

Joanna Kerns, Jenny Robertson, Ted Marcoux ● Dir. Charles Haid ● Wri. James Poe and John Wells, based upon the radio play The Night Man by Lucille Fletcher

U.S. video art courtesy of VHS Collector