Movies - Night After Night

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	Movies - Night After Night

Night After Night is a 1932 Paramount Pictures drama motion picture starring George Raft and Constance Cummings. Others in the cast include Wynne Gibson, Mae West, Alison Skipworth, Roscoe Karns, Louis Calhern, and Bradley Page.

Directed by Archie Mayo, it was adapted for the screen by Vincent Lawrence and Kathryn Scola, based on the Cosmopolitan magazine story Single Night by Louis Bromfield, with Mae West allowed to contribute to her lines of dialogue.

Although Night After Night is not a comedy, it has many comedic moments, especially with the comic relief of Mae West, who plays a supporting role in her screen debut.

70 mins.; black-and-white

Synopsis

The setting is New York City during prohibition. A successful former boxer, Joe Anton (played by Raft), buys a mansion at public auction and converts it into a high-class speakeasy.

Joe is not content with his life and wants to elevate himself into the upper class of society. He considers selling the nightclub. As he takes a bath and talks to his assistant and friend, Leo (played by Karns), he tells him that he is sick of the smell of booze, the noise, and being a pal to a lot of drunks. He says he is not getting anyplace.

Though he is not a gangster, Joe has business dealings with them. Frankie Guard (played by Page), a mob leader and speakeasy rival who wants to get rid of the competition, meets with Joe and offers to buy his club for fifty grand. Realizing he is being "squeezed," Joe's counteroffer is two hundred and fifty grand. When he refuses to sell for less, Frankie threatens that he will soon be "visited" and asks him what kind of flowers he prefers (for his funeral). "Oh, anything at all, except pansies," Joe replies. Frankie promises his last wish will be fulfilled.

Joe hires Miss Mabel Jellyman (played by Skipworth), a very proper middle-aged schoolteacher and speech coach, to improve his rough way of talking as well as his knowledge of acceptable subjects of conversation and the refinements of life.

He has also grown tired of his girlfriend, Iris Dawn (played by Gibson). He becomes interested in a glamorous young woman (played by Cummings) who has been sitting alone at a table for three nights in a row. He interferes when a drunk bothers her and they become acquainted. He learns that this unescorted beauty is Miss Jerry Healy and that her once wealthy family was ruined by the Depression. She goes on to explain that the reason she has been haunting his establishment night after night is because she used to live there. She was, in fact, born there.

He promises to take her on a tour of the house. Her rich playboy fiancé, Dick Bolton (played by Calhern), then discovers her at the table and they discuss how she has second thoughts about marrying him. Joe then returns to show Jerry more attention, take care of her tab and escort her to a taxi.

His ex-girlfriend, Iris, is angered by his interest in Jerry. "I'm not gonna lose nothin', either," she says, to Leo. "He's mine and no gal from Park Avenue can come in and take him away from me. Polite! That's what I don't like about it. A mug trying to be a gentleman. What's got into him, Leo? He ain't the same guy anymore."

"I don't know," Leo replies. "He just wants to injure himself, I guess."

At the taxi door, Joe invites Jerry to a private, quiet dinner at the club the next night. She is enthralled by his interest in her. "You lead a happy life, don't you?" she says. "The pirate of today. Happy days. You have something you must never lose, something different. I don't know exactly what it is, well -- exciting, or is it my imagination?" She accepts his invitation.

Joe makes elaborate plans to put on an intimate dinner party at the club with his speech coach serving as host and chaperone. He coaches Miss Jellyman on impressing Jerry.

"I gotta make a hit with her. I got to impress her. I got to. And you gotta help me. I want us to talk about things that will make her think that I'm a big-leaguer."

The following evening, as Joe is having his private dinner upstairs with Jerry and Miss Jellyman, who is excited about dining in a speakeasy, another ex-girlfriend, Maudie Triplett (played by West), makes a memorable entrance into the establishment.

She is well-dressed, covered with jewels and surrounded by men, and somewhat brash and vulgar. As she waits to be let in, the doorman looks through the peephole, and asks, "Who is it?"

"The fairy princess, ya mug!" she replies.

Maudie flounces into the nightclub, as she wisecracks and uses double entendres with broad humor, and rouses the place. When she walks to the coat check room, the girl looks over at her jewelry and exclaims, "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!"

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