Claudette Colbert, Robert Cummings & Don Ameche in "Sleep, My Love" (1948) - feat. Raymond Burr

Chronic sleepwalker Alison Courtland (Claudette Colbert), a wealthy New Yorker, hasn't a clue how she ended up on a train bound for Boston. When she phones her husband, Richard (Don Ameche), the police listen in and overhear that she had threatened him with a gun. On a flight home, fellow passenger Bruce Elcott (Robert Cummings) is attracted to Alison. Elcott, it turns out, knows one of her good friends.

Back home, Richard makes Alison agree to start seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Rhinehart (Ralph Morgan). However, the 'doctor' who shows up at the house for their first appointment is not Rhinehart, but Charles Vernay (George Coulouris), a photographer hired by Richard, who is having an affair with another woman, Daphne (Hazel Brooks), and hopes to get rid of Alison for good.

Richard's scheme is to drive Alison to suicide and thus inherit her wealth. Elcott, who has come to suspect there is some kind of purposeful plan afoot to confuse and distress Alison, arrives just in time to find her, apparently under hypnosis, about to leap from a balcony to her death. Elcott discovers Vernay's role in the situation. Richard, meanwhile, attempts to drug Alison and make her kill the doctor herself.

Vernay realizes he has been betrayed and shoots Richard. Vernay is later killed by falling through a skylight while being chased by Elcott, after which Elcott and Alison are able to be together in peace.

A 1948 American Black & White film-noir mystery film directed by Douglas Sirk, produced by Ralph Cohn, Mary Pickford, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, screenplay by St. Clair McKelway, Leo Rosten, based on Leo Rosten's 1946 novel of the same name, cinematography by Joseph A. Valentine, starring Claudette Colbert, Robert Cummings, Don Ameche, Rita Johnson, George Coulouris, Queenie Smith, Ralph Morgan, Keye Luke, Fred Nurney, Raymond Burr, Hazel Brooks, and Edgar Dearing.

When this was filmed, Claudette Colbert was 43, Don Ameche was 39 and Robert Cummings was 37.

Screen rights for the story, which was written by Leo Rosten and had been serialized in magazines, were purchased by Triangle Productions in November 1946. Rosten wrote the first screenplay but The New Yorker writer St. Clair McKelway was recruited to contribute to the final version.

The film was produced by Mary Pickford, her husband 'Buddy' Rogers and Ralph Cohn. It was Pickford's first film activity in 12 years since "The Gay Desperado" (1936), although Cohn and Rogers had produced films for Comet Productions. Pickford was involved in approving the cast and script. In December 1946, the production company approached Richard Ney to head the cast. In April 1947, Don Ameche was signed as the star and Douglas Sirk agreed to direct before Claudette Colbert and Robert Cummings were added to the cast.

14 years earlier, Claudette Colbert starred in "Imitation of Life" (1934), with prominent scenes on a balcony with nearly the same view onto the Queensboro bridge. "Imitation of Life" was later remade into the more famous 1959 version by the director of this film, Douglas Sirk.

Douglas Sirk (1897 – 1987), born Hans Detlef Sierck, was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. However, he also directed comedies, westerns, and war films. Sirk started his career in Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left for Hollywood in 1937 after his Jewish wife was persecuted by the Nazis. In the 1950s, he achieved his greatest commercial success with film melodramas. His work is seen as a critique of the bourgeoisie in general and of 1950s America in particular, while painting a compassionate portrait of characters trapped by social conditions. Beyond the surface of the film, Sirk worked with complex mise-en-scène and lush Technicolor to underline his statements.

The world premiere was on January 12, 1948, in Ottawa, Canada as a benefit to help children in Europe. Mary Pickford delivered a speech about the plight of the children.

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic A. H. Weiler wrote, "As the latest arrival on an extremely long line of psychological melodramas, "Sleep, My Love" is a sleek entry which manages to run its course without coming a cropper. An intelligent script, facilely handled, for the most part, helps matters along but a general lack of suspense, familiar plot and somewhat uneven direction keep "Sleep, My Love" ... a fairly obvious chapter in cinema psychology. Whether the hypnotic procedures used by the producers will gratify the Adler, Jung and Freud schools or give those professional gentlemen an aggravated anxiety neurosis, is hard to say. ... "Sleep, My Love" can be marked down as a generally competent job. which has its absorbing moments but which hasn't strayed much from the norm."

Variety's review concluded: "Sleep, My Love manages a fair share of suspense and adds up to okay melodrama. Plot gets off to a strong start and windup is high melodrama that brings off the finale on a fast note."