It stars Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell and Dame May Whitty in her Hollywood film debut at age 72, who earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

A critical success, Night Must Fall was named the best film of the year by the National Board of Review.

Police drag the river and search the surrounding countryside in a small English village for the body of Mrs. Shellbrook, who was a guest at the local hotel and has been missing for days.

The authorities question the town folk, including those living in the home of Mrs. Bramson, an elderly woman who holds court in the village.

She pretends to need a wheelchair, and threatens to fire her maid, Dora, for allegedly stealing a chicken and breaking china.

When Mrs. Bramson's attorney, Justin Laurie, arrives to give his client money, he warns her not to keep so much cash in her possession, but she ignores him, too.

Dame May Whitty, Kathleen Harrison, Merle Tuttenham and Matthew Boulton reprised the roles they originated in the London production.

[2] In an article on TCM.com, Margarita Landazuri reports that Montgomery saw the play in New York and “badgered” Louis B. Mayer into giving him the role.

The New York Daily News wrote that Robert Montgomery's performance "lifts the MGM actor out of the lower brackets, where he has slipped because of shoddy material, into an eminent position among the top-notchers of Hollywood players."

Louis B. Mayer personally supervised the making of a trailer that preceded the film, warning filmgoers of its "experimental nature.

Greene comments that the main problem with the film is that it is directed "like an early talky...no more than a photographed stage play".

[10] Starring Burgess Meredith, Maureen O'Sullivan and Flora Robson, the program has not survived in radio collections.

[11] Night Must Fall was adapted for the July 24, 1944, broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater, starring James Cagney, Rosemary DeCamp and May Whitty.

[12][13] Robert Montgomery produced, hosted and starred in a CBS Radio adaptation of Night Must Fall on Suspense March 27, 1948.