chris and dani show 6 presents
a film written and directed by Chris Hathway

DARK WAS THE NIGHT

starring Daniel Mulcrone
and Emma Southwell

click here to launch a short clip 
[realmedia file, size approx. 7mb, runtime 5 minutes.]

‘Dark Was The Night’ was shot during the autumn and winter of 1997 in the City of Liverpool, the car parks of Redditch and in the maze of motorway interchanges that come together as Spaghetti Junction.

It was my vague and maybe over ambitious plan to create a modern thriller with the style, pace and cinematography of the Spaghetti Western. With a sudden snowfall just before we shot the finale the downbeat ending is closer to the classic ‘Il Grande Silenzio‘ than was planed - with all the free snow that arrived, I couldn’t resist.

Filmed without a budget, in an era before CCTV camera systems, we had the freedom to run around the terrifically atmospheric mid-winter car parks of Redditch without interruption. Friends played the lead roles and I have to say that despite his staccato dialogue delivery, improved since the recent DVD transfer of the film - but still slightly Michael Caine at times, Dan Mulcrone makes a great vengeful husband and certainly puts in the films best performance.

The running time originally came in around 55 minutes, however since transferring the film, originally shot on video, into digital format a tighter edit now leaves it at 35 minutes, which is certainly a little more pacy and entertaining.

Is is any good?

Well, I think it definitely has its moments, the suspense and chase through the lifts and car park early on particularly, and Dan, I’m sure theres a hobby in amateur dramatics waiting for you somewhere, hold on, that was supposed to be a compliment you know…

If we’d shot it today, we’d certainly have cheaper and better equipment, and we’d be editing with the razor sharpness of a computer rather that the vague cut of three video recorders, but with cheap video equipment comes cheap CCTV so what we gained in affordable equipment we’d certainly have lost in the freedom to go and shoot where we pleased. All in all i think it turned out very well, and if nothing else it serves to document some of the buildings and ‘architecture’ of Redditch, Bromsgrove and Toxteth circa 1997.

Click here for a ‘very’ brief audio sample [mp3] or right click to save as.