Escape by Night

For all those interested this title is available on DVD..though it doesn't say it in the IMDb home page for the picture. It is available on the Platnium disc release called "Mobster Movies". Also included on the disc is Gangster's Boy (1938) starring Jackie Cooper, Gang Bullets (1938) starring Anne Nagel and Morgan Wallace, also The Racketeer (1930) starring Carol Lombard and RObert Armstrong. I love these cheap four or more movie disc of films of yesteryear. If you can find it and it is only a few bucks, pick it up, especially if you collect the classics of the golden era. Platnium disc is also famous for their other classic film collections. Including Westerns, classic TV, film noir, drama and comedies.

This uplifting crime-drama, from the early years of Republic Pictures before the studio became an assembly-line, stars usual second-banana and character actor William Hall (a leading man in the Robert Kellard vein) as a former coal-miner who has come to the big city and gets in the way of two rival gangs fighting over a girl, and then finds himself associated with one of the gangs unintentionally. That gang hides out in a rural area (the leader of the gang, Dean Jagger, is not with them...this is just the colorful, "loveable" members of the gang!), where they meet a rural family and a small-time businessman and a dog, all of whom transform the minor criminals and cause them to finally stand up to the gang boss. Ah, there's nothing like those criminals with a heart of gold one finds in Damon Runyon or in 1930's movies. If you can accept the Hallmark Channel premise of this b-programmer, it's actually quite entertaining and fast moving, and has some nice supporting acting from the likes of Ward Bond (as the "cook" of the gang). "Bill" the dog gets a lot of screen time, and he's a good performer in the Rin Tin Tin Jr. vein who fights for the honor of the reformed gang moll with the Hungarian accent, played by Steffi Duna, who seems a lot more comfortable in the "good girl" than in the "tough girl" role. No great analysis is needed of a film such as this. It's good rainy-day entertainment with a positive, uplifting message, but still a crime film. Short of a Touched By An Angel or Highway To Heaven episode, one doesn't see this combination very often nowadays. Worth searching out for b-movie fanatics--others can wait.

I want to be as kind as I possibly can with this film, as it had some elements I enjoyed. At the same time I cannot deny that it is just barely passable as entertainment. A definite low grade film, with a brisk pace, and a script that at times feels like it was being written while they were filming. Particularily towards the end, with its ridiculous jailbreak. The movies most interesting idea was having the gangsters (who are hiding out at a farm owned by an unsuspecting father and his daughter) fall in love with country life, which causes them to give up on crime. An unlikely scenario, but makes for an interesting storyline.

When the film begins, a poor sap, Nick (William Hall) accidentally gets involved with a gang of crooks and folks think he's one of them. Soon he and the Regan gang are on the lam and they come up with a great idea---to hide out at a humble farm in the country. There something unusual happens...the crooks all come to love the simple country life and want to give up their wicked ways. Plus Nick and Jo (Steffi Duna) find love with two locals. The problem is that the leader of the gang, Capper Regan (Dean Jagger) isn't about to let any of them just retire.

This is a bad film in some ways. Steffi Duna can barely speak English and practically needed subtitles. Additionally, the finale is a bit silly. But, most importantly, I was able to set all that aside and enjoy the picture even if it was just a cheap B. Not bad overall and rather fun.

Escape By Night is a B film from a B picture studio Republic which may have lost something in the editing. I'd hate to think that something this bad could have been made deliberately.

Young William Hall being brought up as he was in small town Pennsylvania has been taught to go to a lady in distress which he does on his first day in the big city when gangster's moll Steffi Duna is being accosted. For his efforts Hall gets what they call in movies 'a flesh wound' and gets treated by the local mob doctor. Later on he takes it on the lam with the mob, why is still beyond me because he certainly hasn't done anything wrong.

In the getaway however mob leader Dean Jagger with a full head of hair kills a cop and he splits from the rest of the gang. So Hall, Duna, and henchmen Murray Alper and Ward Bond go into the country on their own.

A flat tire has them winding up at a farm owned by blind Charles Waldron and his daughter Anne Nagel and of course their German Shepherd guide dog, a relative no doubt of Rin Tin Tin. Nagel gives Hall reason enough to hang around. But Duna, Alper, and Bond actually take to country life and the relative peace and quiet and semi-seclusion from the law.

Of course it all catches up with them as it always does in these films. The cast does their best, but with a weak script and some impossible plot situations Escape By Night is not the best thing that ever came from Republic.

Maybe after this one, Herbert J. Yates decided to concentrate on westerns.