Night Was Our Friend
1951 film by Michael Anderson
Night Was Our Friend is a 1951 British second feature ('B') drama film directed by Michael Anderson and starring Elizabeth Sellars, Michael Gough and Ronald Howard. It was written by Michael Pertwee based on his 1951 play of the same name. The title references a line from Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid.
Plot
A young woman is acquitted of the murder of her husband, who died in suspicious circumstances. The film then goes into flashback to portray the events leading up to his death. Sally Raynor's aviator husband Martin has been missing for two years and is believed dead, during which time she has fallen in love with a local doctor, John Harper, whom she plans to marry. Martin unexpectedly returns from Brazil still alive after being held captive by an Amazonian tribe and escaping, and witnessing his companions die in the jungle.
Sally decides to give up the doctor and go back to her life with Martin, although their marriage had not been a happy one. Over the next six months his erratic behaviour, brought on by his ordeal, makes Sally believe he is insane. A close friend of the family, Arthur 'Glan' Glanville, also realises this, as does Dr John Harper and the family's housekeeper.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Night Was Our Friend” as 1951 film by Michael Anderson. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1951 film by Michael Anderson. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18353425. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Night Was Our Friend” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.