| This is a star vehicle showing George Raft in top form as yet another noble and basically decent tough guy with connections to the underworld. Bear in mind that in 1932 Prohibition was still the law, but the movies didn't take it any more seriously than the public did! |
Originally titled ‘Number 55’ after the gambling casino, the film is based on the Cosmopolitan magazine story "Single Night" by Louis Bromfield and directed by Archie Mayo, who famously made The Marx Brothers’ vehicle ‘A Night in Casablanca’ in 1946 – a good film but a torrid experience for all if rumour is to be believed.
Mayo began directing features in 1926 when he directed Money Talks for MGM, went on to make The Doorway to Hell (1930) which featured James Cagney, in his second film.
In 1936 Mayo directed his most prestigious project to that point, The Petrified Forest, an adaptation of Robert E. Sherwood’s Broadway success with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart reprised their stage roles, with Bette Davis added as the box-office draw. He was known as a good storyteller…
Like all good stories this is the story of a man trying to impress a gal...This one tells of Ex-boxer turned speakeasy owner Joe Anton (George Raft) wants to affect a more cultured image to impress a good Park Avenue society girl who comes alone to his club, Miss Jerry Healey (Constance Cummings). So Joe invites his tutor, the rather haughty dowager and grade school teacher Miss Mabel Jellyman (Alison Skipworth) to help him with his manners and his slang.
This is a star vehicle showing George Raft in top form as yet another noble and basically decent tough guy with connections to the underworld. Bear in mind that in 1932 Prohibition was still the law, but the movies didn't take it any more seriously than the public did!
Raft as Anton is the type of gangster who has his wines and whiskies in the open, but locks up his machine guns and pistols, and certainly gives a believable portrayal.
Raft is well tailored and an ambitious low-life with little education and a lot of cash – a kind of reformed thug!
Raft absolutely identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. Best known for his gangster roles in the Howard Hawks’ original ‘Scarface’ (1932) as the coin-flipping Guido Rinaldo and latterly Billy Wilder’s ‘Some Like it Hot’ (1959)
Raft was a close friend of notorious gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel since they were boys together in New York. Siegel actually lived at Raft's home in Hollywood for a time while trying to make inroads for organized crime within the movie community. So Raft's real-life association with New York gangsters gave his screen image in mob films an added realism.
In real life his sartorial elegance was well known and as Raft's career accelerated, the actor was particularly an idol and role model for actual gangsters of the period in terms of dress and attitude.
Tough Guy Raft in fact advocated for the casting of his friend, Mae West, in a supporting role in his first film as leading man…
This was Raft's first starring role in films, but it was also West's first talking film and the hip-slinging, wisecracking, eye-batting blonde stole the show.
West ran roughshod over director Mayo, who was then relatively inexperienced, altering his setup shots and doing as she pleased. "She stole everything but the cameras," Raft later quipped…
In fact they remained friends and Raft and West would not appear together again until 1978 in ‘Sextette’.
In reality of course the wonderful Miss West, in her screen debut as former girlfriend Maudie Triplett, sashays in at about the halfway mark and kicks the movie's excitement quotient up about four notches.
She makes a memorable first entrance on the screen, with what may be considered the single greatest opening bit in any film actress's career.
The uncouth, bejewelled Mae wears a slip that barely covers anything, she's genuinely bracing in her bawdy, plainspoken appeal and cuts immediately through the false deportment Raft and Skipworth are trying to maintain.
Almost everyone knows her famous opening line by heart:
Hatcheck girl: Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!
Maudie: Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.
She is never short of alcoholic beverages, seems to care less about anything non-alcohol or men-related. She is coarse but animated and loose-living…
Mae's best joke has her respond to someone's question of "Do you believe in love at first sight? Mae responds: "I don't know, but it saves a lot of time."
Ms West was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter and last but not least sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades, known for her bawdy double entendres.
West portrays a fictionalized version of American actress and entrepreneur Texas Guinan, who ran a New York speakeasy. West was reportedly a fan of Guinan and incorporated some of the flamboyant Guinan's ideas into her own acts.
As for the rest of the cast:
Constance Cummings as Miss Healey is charming while helping Raft to help improve his rough speech patterns and his knowledge of acceptable subjects of conversation.
Whether in theatre or in film and whether tragedy, farce, comedy or melodrama she always impressed – which inspired a London critic, in 1934 to call her, "a film star who can act"! We may recall her fondly as the upper middle-class wife of Rex Harrison in David Lean's Blithe Spirit (1945).
Certainly shining whilst appearing alongside Miss West is no mean feat!
Alison Skipworth was originally a Broadway actress who made her name in Hollywood as a character actress of the 30's, specializing in playing aristocratic types. She might be better remembered, however, in association with her antagonist in four screen comedies - none other than W.C. Fields.
British to the last she insisted that she drank tea daily in her own garden each afternoon when she was not working.
Wynne Gibson (as Girlfriend moll Iris) Dawn was perhaps best known for her role as the down-on-her-luck prostitute who suddenly becomes rich in the film classic If I Had a Million (1932). Miss Gibson was generally cast as the second female lead or ‘other woman’ never receiving top billing.
The wonderfully urbane Louis Calhern playing rich playboy Dick Bolton was good at portraying snooty cads. He was distinguished and classically trained yet initially was cast as romantic heavy or an out-and-out villain. He was part of the infamous ‘Irish Mafia’ drinking gang consisting of Spenser Tracey, Pat O’Brien and James Cagney.
Now fondly remembered as a foil for Groucho Marx in ‘Duck Soup’ (1933) and as Uncle Willy in his final film, ‘High Society’ (1956); he was a stalwart with diverse characterisations in Hollywood’s golden age.
In a sense ‘Night After Night’ could be a masterclass on how to steal a picture by Mae West…
Night After Night was to some extent a trial run that paid off for Mae, for Paramount immediately launched her in an adaptation of her biggest stage hit Diamond Lil, re-titled She Done Him Wrong. Going into 1933, West's success was such that the studios gladly battled with the censors to present her act undiluted.
Her bawdy routines caused her to be regularly troubled by the censors. Asked about the various efforts to impede her career, West replied, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."
Mayo began directing features in 1926 when he directed Money Talks for MGM, went on to make The Doorway to Hell (1930) which featured James Cagney, in his second film.
In 1936 Mayo directed his most prestigious project to that point, The Petrified Forest, an adaptation of Robert E. Sherwood’s Broadway success with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart reprised their stage roles, with Bette Davis added as the box-office draw. He was known as a good storyteller…
Like all good stories this is the story of a man trying to impress a gal...This one tells of Ex-boxer turned speakeasy owner Joe Anton (George Raft) wants to affect a more cultured image to impress a good Park Avenue society girl who comes alone to his club, Miss Jerry Healey (Constance Cummings). So Joe invites his tutor, the rather haughty dowager and grade school teacher Miss Mabel Jellyman (Alison Skipworth) to help him with his manners and his slang.
This is a star vehicle showing George Raft in top form as yet another noble and basically decent tough guy with connections to the underworld. Bear in mind that in 1932 Prohibition was still the law, but the movies didn't take it any more seriously than the public did!
Raft as Anton is the type of gangster who has his wines and whiskies in the open, but locks up his machine guns and pistols, and certainly gives a believable portrayal.
Raft is well tailored and an ambitious low-life with little education and a lot of cash – a kind of reformed thug!
Raft absolutely identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. Best known for his gangster roles in the Howard Hawks’ original ‘Scarface’ (1932) as the coin-flipping Guido Rinaldo and latterly Billy Wilder’s ‘Some Like it Hot’ (1959)
Raft was a close friend of notorious gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel since they were boys together in New York. Siegel actually lived at Raft's home in Hollywood for a time while trying to make inroads for organized crime within the movie community. So Raft's real-life association with New York gangsters gave his screen image in mob films an added realism.
In real life his sartorial elegance was well known and as Raft's career accelerated, the actor was particularly an idol and role model for actual gangsters of the period in terms of dress and attitude.
Tough Guy Raft in fact advocated for the casting of his friend, Mae West, in a supporting role in his first film as leading man…
This was Raft's first starring role in films, but it was also West's first talking film and the hip-slinging, wisecracking, eye-batting blonde stole the show.
West ran roughshod over director Mayo, who was then relatively inexperienced, altering his setup shots and doing as she pleased. "She stole everything but the cameras," Raft later quipped…
In fact they remained friends and Raft and West would not appear together again until 1978 in ‘Sextette’.
In reality of course the wonderful Miss West, in her screen debut as former girlfriend Maudie Triplett, sashays in at about the halfway mark and kicks the movie's excitement quotient up about four notches.
She makes a memorable first entrance on the screen, with what may be considered the single greatest opening bit in any film actress's career.
The uncouth, bejewelled Mae wears a slip that barely covers anything, she's genuinely bracing in her bawdy, plainspoken appeal and cuts immediately through the false deportment Raft and Skipworth are trying to maintain.
Almost everyone knows her famous opening line by heart:
Hatcheck girl: Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!
Maudie: Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.
She is never short of alcoholic beverages, seems to care less about anything non-alcohol or men-related. She is coarse but animated and loose-living…
Mae's best joke has her respond to someone's question of "Do you believe in love at first sight? Mae responds: "I don't know, but it saves a lot of time."
Ms West was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter and last but not least sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades, known for her bawdy double entendres.
West portrays a fictionalized version of American actress and entrepreneur Texas Guinan, who ran a New York speakeasy. West was reportedly a fan of Guinan and incorporated some of the flamboyant Guinan's ideas into her own acts.
As for the rest of the cast:
Constance Cummings as Miss Healey is charming while helping Raft to help improve his rough speech patterns and his knowledge of acceptable subjects of conversation.
Whether in theatre or in film and whether tragedy, farce, comedy or melodrama she always impressed – which inspired a London critic, in 1934 to call her, "a film star who can act"! We may recall her fondly as the upper middle-class wife of Rex Harrison in David Lean's Blithe Spirit (1945).
Certainly shining whilst appearing alongside Miss West is no mean feat!
Alison Skipworth was originally a Broadway actress who made her name in Hollywood as a character actress of the 30's, specializing in playing aristocratic types. She might be better remembered, however, in association with her antagonist in four screen comedies - none other than W.C. Fields.
British to the last she insisted that she drank tea daily in her own garden each afternoon when she was not working.
Wynne Gibson (as Girlfriend moll Iris) Dawn was perhaps best known for her role as the down-on-her-luck prostitute who suddenly becomes rich in the film classic If I Had a Million (1932). Miss Gibson was generally cast as the second female lead or ‘other woman’ never receiving top billing.
The wonderfully urbane Louis Calhern playing rich playboy Dick Bolton was good at portraying snooty cads. He was distinguished and classically trained yet initially was cast as romantic heavy or an out-and-out villain. He was part of the infamous ‘Irish Mafia’ drinking gang consisting of Spenser Tracey, Pat O’Brien and James Cagney.
Now fondly remembered as a foil for Groucho Marx in ‘Duck Soup’ (1933) and as Uncle Willy in his final film, ‘High Society’ (1956); he was a stalwart with diverse characterisations in Hollywood’s golden age.
In a sense ‘Night After Night’ could be a masterclass on how to steal a picture by Mae West…
Night After Night was to some extent a trial run that paid off for Mae, for Paramount immediately launched her in an adaptation of her biggest stage hit Diamond Lil, re-titled She Done Him Wrong. Going into 1933, West's success was such that the studios gladly battled with the censors to present her act undiluted.
Her bawdy routines caused her to be regularly troubled by the censors. Asked about the various efforts to impede her career, West replied, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."