The Lonely Night (1954)

[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] This is the hour when [music] we come away from other people. The hour when we come back to ourselves [music] in the darkness of night. [music] We come face to face with our own thoughts and our own feelings. For we are alone. In the night we can catch glimpses of what aloneeness means. But it means many things. Loneliness is one of them. [music] We try to light up the night in order to banish our fear of loneliness. We smile. We pretend. We talk a blue streak in an effort to hide our feelings. Surrounded by people, by the wrong people, we are lonier than ever. We try to aloneeness into sleep. But when real or imagined terrors put us into alertness, the sleeplessness itself becomes a sort of fear. But alone have to be loneliness and fear. It can be privacy. The night [music] hours can lose to anger and richer. But for people like [music] Carolyn Cra, aloneeness seems like punishment. It means being [music] shut off in solitude with her pain and her misery. For aloneeness can be [music] exiled. the feeling we've been deserted by the people we need. For a world of strangers disappears [music] for the night, we are usually left with the people who mean most to us. The night is a family time. It's stillness broken [music] by family sounds. [screaming] Bill Dunn can forget it while he still hears it. [crying] >> Harry can react to it without quite hearing it. >> [crying] >> What's the matter, Tommy? >> What's the matter, boy? >> You are a little warm. >> No, no, don't cry. There are ordinary things to do about ordinary trouble, >> but doing is a way of striking out against troubles that may be worse. Okay, now drink up and go back to sleep. There, you'll be all right. Being alone can mean being alone with one's family. Tonight can be a time to reshift and rebalance the burdens of responsibility. Not fear, we say, just worry. Stop worrying. We tell each other. Go to bed. Everything will be all right. We say it for strength. We say it for love. We say it to fight anxiety. The anxiety is [music] born of our past and will live in our future. Our inner thoughts at midnight arouse feelings that are always with us. Aloneess merely [music] stirs them up. Night. Night night is only the other half of day. And for Caroline, who lives across the street, it has been a bad day. And so tonight is a bad night. If I could only sleep, maybe my headache will go away by morning. How will I ever get to work? I've got to sleep. Maybe one pill isn't enough. A few more couldn't hurt me any. Maybe I can forget Mac if I sleep. But I shouldn't hate him. It wasn't his fault. He only found out the truth about me. For a little while, I fooled him. He was so wonderful, so smiling. I used to feel smiling too. How stupid I was. How stupid. But there comes a time when we have to quiet painful memories in the bitter echo of our shame. Befuddled, hungry, unaware, we reach out for the relief of oblivion. We emerge from aloneeness as the light returns. Day is a time for coming together. The Duns live on Elliot Street. No anxiety now, just irritation. Steviey's afraid that the whole thing may be called off. But while Tommy's fever is gone, he's not well enough to go on an outing. But then suddenly everything is all right again. King baby has given permission. They're off. They're all not quite the grill for the hot dog. Steviey's glad to have something to do to make it happen. This is the day he's been waiting for for months, it seems to him. The duns are off on a simple Sunday picnic. This can be a park, an ordinary Sunday, [music] an ordinary family, or it can be something much more important. It can be an Indian hollow, a tribe on the move to a new encampment, an exciting day that may forever leave its mark on a young, impressionable human being. [music] An ordinary man on his day off may really be a rival fisherman with all the skills Stevie dreams of having himself someday. Daddy can turn into a chief in charge of setting up the camp. >> [music] [music] >> A brave is a young man who feels important because he's being depended on by other people because he's trusted. Is it surprising that he should begin to feel trustworthy as a result? We all like learning to do new important things. We all like being treated [music] as equals. We all like the feeling of belonging around the fire. So a picnic can be a big thing in our lives. Thing by which we grow into our place in the world or more important [music] still grow up and out. Growing is never easy. Growing is never done without some danger, some fear [music] and some courage. [music] [music] It's fun to be strong and confident, fun to be admired. There's no growing without the risk of fear, the fun of licking it. >> [music] >> As Stevie grows, he learns to live with other people. The people who feed him, who teach him discipline, who love him. [music] As he learns his place in the group, he can also come to appreciate theirs. And with such security inside them, Kathy and Stevie can make their way in a fascinating world beyond their [music] parents' apron strings. [music] There is a place for help, for cooperation, for parenthood. There are many things that remain difficult until fingers are longer or until the problems are understood. >> [music] [music] >> It's all a part of growing, of learning the things that other [music] men have learned. And not just men, but women, too. Cheating a little girl out of the fun doesn't help make her more ladylike. You feel many things and think many [music] thoughts when you fish. It's a time for dreaming and a time for imagining. A quiet, peaceful time. Yes, a picnic can [music] be a big day with everyone growing, everyone sharing the love, the warmth, the oneness that all people need and want. Such minutes in childhood help us grow to the fullness and richness of which we're all capable. Such minutes in childhood save months and years of hungry [music] searching in later life. But some of us have a different kind of childhood. Because our inner needs for love and appreciation have not been fed, we frantically keep trying to satisfy them, suffering loneliness in the midst of people in the light of day. Carolyn Cra is such a person. Would you like to tell me what you're thinking about? Nothing. >> Nothing. My mind is a blunt. I just noticed the pattern on the carpet. I don't like it very much. It reminds me of the carpet in my room. Gives me the heeie-jeebies. The one in my room. I mean, it's old and worn out. The mind keeps wandering. So many things go in and out. >> Like what? >> Oh, I don't know. Clothes, office, business. I don't know. I'm not really thinking about them. They've gone before. I really can't tell you about them. There's nothing to tell. I'm sorry. >> You were about 15 minutes late today. Let's talk about that for a minute. >> I was held up at the office. >> That's the only reason. >> Yes, except that I missed a bus. I ran, but I missed it. >> Perhaps you didn't want to come. >> But I did want to come. Well, you know I did. I got here, didn't I? Little late, but I got here after all. >> After all what? >> After all the delay, the business at the office and and the bus. It wasn't my fault. >> Of course, I wanted to come. Why shouldn't I want to come? >> Maybe you don't like talking to him. >> Oh, I do usually, >> but not today. Nothing to say today. Nothing important anyway. >> Do you think you have to talk about important things? >> So stupid. Not having anything to say. I feel like a fool. >> Why? >> Oh, I'm so boring. I really don't see why you go on wasting your time with me. I haven't got anything to say that would be of interest to someone like you. >> Everything you say interests me. [laughter] Sir, you said you enjoy talking to me. I didn't think anyone would ever say that to me. [laughter] This is the first time Carolyn has cried in all the weeks she's been telling me about herself. She never cried when she talked about her childhood or about the death of her mother when she was 6 years old. She never admits even now that she missed the mother. It was an experience left in the air. Never worked through or worked out. never understood. She says there was something wrong with her even then, something different. >> Even in the years when Mr. Creme tried to be both father and mother, >> I didn't really appreciate him. I guess it should have been the best time of my life. She had him all to herself, except for the job that supported them both. She remembers breakfast was a time for holding on, for trying to prevent his daily departure. Over and over again, she tells me that she loved her father and that he loved her. But every morning, she was frustrated by his inevitable leaving. Every morning she fact that he was all that she had to fulfill her inner needs. And so now at 25 she still thinks of love as something that should cause suffering. During school vacations especially, the day was a vacuum 10 hours long. [music] >> I didn't like to play with other children because I wasn't like them. It seemed safer and more comfortable to stay around the house. >> So her days were 10 hours of the pain she tries even now to dismiss with the phrase, "I guess I was lonely." For even now she can't admit hating him for leaving her alone. Nothing else mattered to her but his coming and going. Nothing else could hold her interest or divert her hunger. She feels somehow that she deserved this kind of torture. But why? She doesn't know. For she remembers nothing of the guilt she felt in connection with her mother's death. nothing of her confused feelings about her father. She can't remember those feelings because she doesn't want to remember them. They are too painful to remember, too close to the core of her trouble. This is how affection came to be mixed up in the pattern of her feelings with pain and guilt and resentment and loneliness. She had hours to practice the art of feeling deserted. The penalty for having a man all to herself. Actually, she had nothing to herself. For her inner needs were unsatisfied and becoming twisted. Nothing was real for Carolyn but loneliness. But even 10 hours can come to an end. >> Father never stopped on the way home. I can still remember the sound of his steps on the driveway. The joy of being set free from my cage of loneliness. There is another kind of day she remembers. Days when she was sick and had to stay home from school. They seem like good days now. Her father would come home from his job to take care of her, to nurse her. On those days, there would be love and attention all day long. But this love is mixed up with sore throats and fever and the smell of medicine. Pain and bomb are all confused in her mind. And Carolyn also remembers a special day. A day when her father was excited and upset. She had known the day was coming. They had talked about it, but not very much. >> I guess he was afraid of hurting my feelings. >> [music] >> She remembers trying to quiet him down that morning to reassure him. She was trying to behave grown up to act the little lady as she had promised she would act on that special day. And he in turn had promised not to be away long. He would be back in less than an hour. He kept his word. He was back from the station in 40 minutes with the woman who was to be his new wife. As he said, Carolyn's new mother. But Carolyn didn't see why she needed a mother, especially now that she herself had become a little lady. Why did her father want another lady? Why? [music] I don't know why I had to run. I don't know why I couldn't answer. I don't know why I wanted to cry or why I couldn't cry. He didn't want me anymore. I wasn't his little lady. I'll never be a lady. >> She admits she didn't like the woman who was to be her stepmother, but she doesn't want to talk about her feelings toward her father that afternoon. I felt sad. Like when my cat died, but this time I couldn't cry. I was too sad to cry. He told me I ought to love her and that she would love me. But I didn't want her to love me. Nobody could love me. Nobody but my father. And now it seemed he didn't either. Hours later, her father found her and took her home. Carried her home in his arms lovingly like other days.