Night Waitress

The story itself is fine, concerning a waitress on probation and a seemingly shady guy. She suspects him as a gangster but he has a charm nonetheless.

From there the plot is fast paced (the running time is only 57 minutes)and fairly predictable. The acting is average overall, though the leads (Grahame and Jones) are a cut above.

Honestly though, for movie buffs, the background is just as interesting. Anthony Quinn runs around as a gangster. Some of the sets look familiar as well.

Worth a watch!

Night Waitress (1936)

** (out of 4)

Decent crime picture from Lew Landers has Helen Roberts (Margot Grahame) getting a waitress job after being put on probation for a crime the police think she knew about but couldn't really prove. Once working the woman gets involved with a young man (Gordon Jones) but what she doesn't know is that this location is a hot spot for gangster crime and soon she's threatened with going back to jail. There's romance, crime and drama here but none of the three things are exactly done good. For the most part this is just a 57-minute "B" picture that was obviously made to play second tier to something much bigger and as long as you don't take it too serious or expect too much you should at least be slightly entertained. I think Landers does a nice job with what he has to work with as he at least keeps the picture moving at a fast pace and for the most part the seedy locations feel real. Both Grahame and Jones do a nice job in the leads and help carry the picture and we also get to see Billy Gilbert in the role of the restaurant owner. If you look quick you can even spot a very young Anthony Quinn in a few spots. The biggest problem with the picture is that nothing ever really works well enough to make the film a good one. Still, fans who enjoy these forgotten, low-budget pictures will still want to check it out.

Well done B-movie about a gal on probation who works as a waitress at the dockside "Torre's Fish Palace", run by Papa Torre (Billy Gilbert, unfortunately seen oh so briefly in this film) who makes sure his wait staff aren't over-perfumed or wearing too much makeup. Just trying to keep out of trouble, our waitress unfortunately is of the attractive blonde variety, and every jerk man in the restaurant keeps trying to hit on her. Soon she, for some reason (I guess it's the guy's big, dopey grin that got her), is mixed up with this really aggressive, but handsome lug who is a racketeer on the watch each night to meet some mug named Rigo, and waits in his regular booth at midnight for the guy to show. Meanwhile, a gang of detectives/gangsters are out to meet up with this Rigo as well.

A fast-paced little crime drama, this film is not too bad for a low budget movie. This is another one of those movies (and there sure are a lot of them) where the woman thinks a guy is a creep at first (or as she calls him "a gorilla") but he is just SO assertive, pressing her into going out with him, grabbing her aggressively to kiss her, etc., that she actually starts to like the guy. And, well, he does seem to have his charms, which are not visible in the earlier parts of the film - but I wonder at her easy change of mind. The acting by the two leads (Margot Grahame and Gordon Jones) is quite well done and there is a good deal of chemistry between them as well - and watch for a young Anthony Quinn in this as one of the "detectives". Worth seeing.

A couple of innocent people, Gordon Jones and Margot Grahame get caught up in an effort to move some stolen gold out of the country in Night Waitress. Jones is a schooner captain who is hired to move the stuff, cargo unknown to him. Grahame is a waitress working at Billy Gilbert's waterfront dive establishment who just gets caught up in it. She also gets caught up in Jones. Had she not been on probation the cops would never even been interested.

This B picture from RKO boasts the presence of one movie legend, Anthony Quinn as one of the gangsters involved in the heist. Quite an ingenious place to hide the gold, almost in plain sight.

Nothing particularly special about this one, but it's fast moving and exciting entertainment.

Margot Grahame has just been put on probation. She goes back to work at Billy Gilbert's waterfront fish restaurant. She wants to work and avoid trouble. Sailor Gordon Jones wants to date her. When gangsters kill a criminal in the restaurant, she's the only witness. The gang starts looking for her.

It's a nice, atmospheric B movie that doesn't bother with gloss. Director Lee Landers, just breaking out of B westerns the year this was made, shoots quickly and efficiently, with San Pedro standing in for San Francisco in the shipside shots.

Margot Grahame was Britain's highest-paid screen actress in this period. Dubbed 'the Aluminum Blonde', she was a skilled performer, trying to break into the much more prosperous American industry.

With a fine cast of then-minor players - the IMDb claims this is Anthony Quinn's first feature; it's really his fifth - it's a good example of what could be done on a small budget.