Moonrise

Based on the 1946 novel of the same name, Frank Borzage’s Moonrise follows the son of a man hanged for murder, the catalyst for a life plagued by bullying and ostracization. In a particularly fraught confrontation, the young Danny (Dane Clark) kills one of his tormentors in self defense. He soon develops a fledgling relationship with the deceased man’s fiancée, a schoolteacher who finds herself increasingly charmed by the afflicted man. This postwar noir from Borzage serves as a hidden gem within the catalogue of an auteur often neglected in the chronicling of early Hollywood.