Clash by Night

Mae Doyle comes back to her hometown a cynical woman. Her brother Joe fears that his love, fish cannery worker Peggy, may wind up like Mae. Mae marries Jerry and has a baby; she is happy but restless, drawn to Jerry's friend Earl. The bitter and cynical Mae Doyle returns to the fishing village where she was raised after deceptive loves and life in New York. She meets her brother, the fisherman Joe Doyle, and he lodges her in his home. Mae is courted by Jerry D'Amato, a good and naive man that owns the boat where Joe works, and he introduces his brutal friend Earl Pfeiffer, who works as theater's projectionist and is cheated by his wife. She does not like Earl and his jokes, but Jerry considers him his friend and they frequently see each other. Mae decides to accept the proposal of Jerry and they get married and one year later they have a baby girl. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil After ten long years of absence, Mae Doyle returns to her hometown of Monterey, California, disillusioned by the big-city lifestyle of New York. There, unattainable Mae's air of sophistication and confidence catches the eye of the hard-working, good-natured fisherman, Jerry, and his misogynistic, patronising, movie projectionist friend, Earl, who, right from the start, begins to court her. But, Mae has had her share of loser boyfriends, and even though she seems determined to spare an innocent her cynicism, she decides to take a second chance at love and marries Jerry. Now, one year and a baby daughter later, a silent undercurrent of unspoken desires and raw lust threaten Jerry's happiness. Once, Jerry promised that he would do anything for Mae. Is he prepared to lose everything in the aftermath of love? —Nick Riganas Without warning to anyone at her destination, Mae Doyle, having been east for ten years, returns home to the fishing community of Monterey, California to regroup in a sudden change in fortune having to do with her married politician lover having passed away and thus time away unfulfilled in her goal of a rich husband to take care of her. She moves back into the family cottage occupied by her brother, fisherman Joe Doyle, who is ambivalent to her return in they having different outlooks in life, he who just wants to settle down in their blue collar life with his cannery worker girlfriend, Peg. While Joe is concerned that Mae will give Peg, whose life experience has been relegated to Monterey, grand ideas of the world, Mae herself has to decide where her future lies as she catches the attention of two very different men. The first is Jerry D'Amato, Joe's boss, a simple man who lives with and is thus caregiver to his drunkard widowed father and his freeloading maternal Uncle Vince. Jerry wants a traditional family life with a wife who would look after him, while he in return would never hurt her, he thus being a "safe" but boring choice. The second is Joe's best friend, Earl Pfeiffer, who works as a projectionist at the movie theater. While Earl is already married, to a chorus girl on the road more often than she is at home, he too is a restless soul which manifests itself often in inappropriate behavior. While Mae understand someone like Earl more so than someone like Jerry, she also knows that Earl has the potential to be bad for her, especially in they being so like minded and in he seemingly and inherently not liking women. —Huggo