[REVIEW-CAST #12-a] An Addendum on 1981’s NIGHT SCHOOL

After posting my brief review of NIGHT SCHOOL—covering how it uniquely intersects, and makes a hybrid out of, the Giallo and Italian Cannibal genres—I realized I’d forgotten one of the other cinematic echoes I wanted to highlight: Carol Reed’s THE THIRD MAN. 

For NIGHT SCHOOL, it seems safe to say that the melancholy cemetery scene that almost ends the film (that really *should* have ended the film, imo, instead of the jokey, slapstick sting in the tail that we get instead) is at least a casual callback to that oh-so-famous final scene in Reed’s picture.  

In both films we get a conflicted female protagonist, leaving the funeral of her lover, and choosing to walk the long distance home instead of accepting a ride from the man she believes responsible for her lover’s death. The screenshot sequence that follows certainly gives one the sense that somebody involved wanted to give a nod to Reed.

(Another film that comes to mind, that pays homage to THE THIRD MAN with its final shot, is Robert Altman’s THE LONG GOODBYE.)

Leonard Jacobs

March, 2016