9:05 p.m.	Clash by Night Fritz Lang (U.S., 1952)

This is a noir vision of a Sirkian Stanwyck role: the worldly-wise woman trying to make a go of domesticity. Defeated by the city, she returns to her small fishing town and attempts to suppress her sophistication by marrying a goodhearted fisherman, Paul Douglas. But she is drawn into the adulterous net of Robert Ryan, like her, an anguished misfit. The film, adapted from a play by Clifford Odets, has some of the most caustic dialogue of any of the fifties noirs. Visually, Fritz Lang and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca counterpose claustrophobic interiors and documentary-style location shooting of the Monterey sardine fishing industry and Cannery Row. Marilyn Monroe, in one of her first important dramatic roles, takes lessons from sister-in-law Stanwyck on how to be free and then come home "when you run out of places."

—Judy Bloch

• Written by Alfred Hayes, from the play by Clifford Odets. Photographed by Nicholas Musuraca. With Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe. (100 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Warner Bros.)