A rather fishy intrigue going at any lengths to cause as much confusion as possible, as it basically only consists of loose ends all over, but it all starts at sea in the second world war, then proceeds to a court martial where James Mason appears to be convicted and dismissed from service, whereupon he shaves his beard and tries to get hold of a girl 'Mary' who has some awful things to tell him, which she never gets a chance to, as the old lorn house she has made an appointment with him in is empty except for a dead girl with a mysterious paper note clutched in her hand, which body is discovered by another girl, leading them to some circle of spies disguised as an entertainment company with mind readers, harmonica players and another singing girl, while James Mason is more interested in one girl than another, or is it the other way around? Anyway, there is nothing wrong with the acting or the intrigue-making, James Mason is always worth enjoying, but that's about all in this film - the death mystery in the desert house provides the only excitement, which never is satisfied, as the body disappears and never is recovered... Is it a comedy, a satire, just an entertainment made for kicks, is it seriously meant at all, or was it just made to fill some gap? The film inspires as many questions as an almost total lack of answers, but it provides at least some momentary entertainment...

Reading the synopsis of They Met In The Dark I was expecting quite a different film. The plot outline made it sound incredibly serious and this was wartime Great Britain.Instead I got a rather lighthearted treatment of the plight of courtmartialed Naval Commander James Mason. Seems as though he was given a Mickey Finn and left with false orders in his pocket that led to his ship being sunk by the Nazis. Now cashiered from the Royal Navy, Mason's looking for answers. So is Joyce Howard who is over from Canada looking for her girlfriend who has disappeared. She finds the girlfriend's corpse with Mason in a mysterious house.After this They Met In The Dark is a variation on what Alfred Hitchcock did much better with The Thirty Nine Steps. In fact the method used by the bad guy spies for transmitting messages involves a theatrical performer. I guess I'm not used to seeing James Mason in material as light as this. He and Howard do have some good chemistry. When he would do Hitchcock in North By Northwest he was not the light leading man there.Not one of Mason's classic films, but something different.

"They Met in the Dark" is like the first draft of a Hitchcock film, before the better plotting, interesting camera-work, and Hitchcock wit is added. In fact, it's a blend of "The 39 Steps" and "The Lady Vanishes." With many of the same elements:Man and woman meet during a mysterious incident. Check. They are forced to stay on the run together. Check. The "McGuffin" is a secret message about the military. Check. The secret is conveyed by a music hall entertainer. Check. The unlikely couple end up in love. Check. It's interesting to see the difference between a perfectly fine movie and a great one. Hitchcock created striking lighting effects, innovative camera moves, and darker, more menacing threat. "They Met in the Dark" is a perfectly charming diversion and a nice, little movie. But pales in comparison to the Hitchcock films of the same era.

***SPOILERS*** We see an almost unidentifiable looking James Mason wearing what looks like a cheap clip-on beard as British Naval officer Richard Heritage get canned from the Royal Navy for having his ship with all aboard sunk by a Nazi U-Boat because of not following the instructions he was given. It turns out that the orders that Heritage was given was switched by a pro-German spy while he was having a few drinks at a local pub.It's when Heratige tracks down the mysterious but now dead bar girl at a sleazebag hotel in the country he runs into Canadian Laura Verity, Joyce Howard,who was visiting her sick uncle at the very same hotel room who feels that he in fact murdered her. This has Laura on the run feeling that she'll end up being Heritage's next victim. It doesn't take long for Heritage to convince Laura with his good looks and British manners, as well as puppy dog brown eyes, that he's on the up and up and not the cold blooded killer that she thinks he is. It's then that Laura with Heritage's urging who then gets a job as a singer and dancer at the place that the murdered bar girl last worked for "The Child Talent Agency" run by Christopher Child, Tom Well. It's Well who was using it as cover for his Nazi Liverpool spy ring!***SPOILERS**** Not much if any action for a film supporting the allied war effort at the height of WWII but more like a 1930's screwball comedy instead.It's later in the movie that were told, by the Royal Navy officials, that Heritage was in fact an innocent stooge made to look like he screwed things up so the Nazis won't take him seriously. The fact that Laura came into the picture or movie made things that much more complicated for the British who now had two people to save from the Nazis one-Richard Heritage- who had some idea of what was going on in the movie and another-Laura Verity-who was totally clueless!P.S Breath taking performance by the great Ronald Chesley who steals the show as he blows everyone away and off their feet as the film's show stopping main attraction "Max the Mouth" the wild & crazy harmonica player.