Night After Night

I'm sorry, but I do not understand most of the reviews here taking so much time on Mae West (not my aunt). This was the first movie in which I was aware of Constance Cummings, and for me, she makes it. Mae West is an amusing diversion, a counterpoint to the core story, but it is not her movie. Constance Cummings is both gorgeous and icily, mysteriously seductive. In every one of her scenes. she fascinates and dominates.

Yes, it's fun to hear the first iteration of Mae's "goodness had nothing to do with it", and yes, the ending is simplistic and abrupt, but it was the Cummings character that kept me watching.

I was expecting a lousy film whose only value was as the debut film of Mae West - I mean Leonard calls it a "crashing bore"! But what I got was a delightful film, excellently acted by all, with a profound theme and great dialogue. It is a film about dissatisfaction - all the characters are unhappy with their lot and desperately grasping for change. George Raft, the slick gangster, wants an education and true love. Constance Cummings also wants true love, although she thinks she wants security. And Alison Skipworth wants the wild life instead of school teacher drudgery. Only Mae West seems happy with her place as a man-devouring cosmetician.

This film is not a comedy - although it has many hilarious scenes (wait until you see West and Skipworth in bed together!). It is a frank and insightful drama, very risque and dangerously sexual. George Raft is unusually sensitive, Constance Cummings outstanding and Alison Skipworth dazzling. The supporting cast is also fine - led by the incomparable Mae West. A rare treat from the early 1930's.

Night After Night is a very amusing gangster spoof comedy from the early talkie era. Best remembered as Gorge Raft's first starring role and Mae West's introductory movie role -- as if she needed any introduction! Nevertheless, this unambitious little movie stands on its own, tightly directed by Archie Mayo, beautifully filmed by cinematographer Ernest Haller, and well acted by the entire cast. The dialog is snappy with lots of funny lines, and the musical score, which seems to be that naturally produced by the bands in the speakeasy setting, stays in the background but enhances the light-hearted, devil-may-care Prohibition ambiance. Released in late 1932, this picture looks and sounds very sophisticated technically, showing in what a short time the industry had overcome the problems of creaky early sound equipment.

Raft, the owner of a high-class speak, is admiring from afar, and in fact has rather foolishly fallen in love with, a classy-looking "Park Avenue dame" (Constance Cummings) who frequents his joint, sitting all by herself and looking dreamy. Because he knows he's a no-class mug, he hires a stuffy old school teacher (Alison Skipworth) to teach him how to get some -- class, that is. It's a hopeless case of course, but Raft manages to get a date with the swell broad anyway, mainly because the building his joint occupies was once her girlhood home. The brew is stirred by a rival gang trying to horn in on his operation, a pistol-packing, madly jealous ex-moll (Wynne Gibson), and Raft's cynical henchman (Roscoe Karns) grousing about the entire proceeding. Raft thinks he has it going swimmingly with the swell dame when he gets her to dinner at his joint, especially since he has his tutor Skipworth at the table to give him moral support and keep his shaky class from slipping. The party gets livelier when it is crashed by another of his old flames, that moll of molls Mae West. The inimitable Mae works her very bad influence to get the school teacher roaring drunk.

Those to whom this is the first Mae West movie, may wonder why there was so much fuss over her. Sure, her two best assets -- the ones the inflatable life preserver was named for -- look great in a see-though negligee, but she's still a chubby middle-aged woman. Well, stick around. She would have probably said something like, "It ain't what ya got, it's how you carry it." Mae's role here is a supporting one. She doesn't show up until the midway point and has only a couple of scenes, but as George Raft reportedly complained, "She stole everything but the cameras!" Raft and Cummings are okay in the leads, both charming in fact. But it is the supporting cast that shines in this little jewel. Mae West is Mae West, and Roscoe Karns is Roscoe Karns at his best. Yet Alison Skipworth as the stuffy but lovable old schoolmarm practically steals the show, as she did nearly every movie she was in. She even keeps up with Mae West in the scene-stealing game. Here's a hot tip for you little mugs and mollies who are new to the racket of watching beautiful, old black and white movies -- you can't go wrong if you make a point to never miss an Alison Skipworth picture!

Night After Night is slick, solid, Old Hollywood entertainment all the way.

It is not fantastic but amazingly wonderful of some of the great stars of the 30s I hardly know. But it is an early part for George Raft in his first big film, he seems a bit strange but I suppose it was the time but he made 8 films that year including Scarface. Constance Cummings only 22 at the time and also made 8 films that year this one of her first films and she is lovely. We have to wait for about half an hour before Mae West arrives, her very first film and every thing gets going when she is there. It was clear that she was going places as she sparkled so much more even though there are so many others running around. Amusing and fun to see all the others but really it is Mae West.

"Night After Night" was an otherwise unmemorable George Raft opus of the early 1930's... The scene was the entrance to a nightspot...

Enter Mae West, magnificently dripping in so much jewelery it must have given the lighting cameraman several heart attacks in his attempts to "damp it down" so that it didn't "flash up the bottle" as she moved…

Cries the hat-check girl: "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!"

Mae West: "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie."

Gangsters' molls... they are part of the legend of the mobster movie… And in "Night After Night" it was never openly established just what kind of a dame Mae West was playing, but with all those rocks she looked like the gangster's moll to top them all