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Although this film is will always be remembered for introducing Mae West to cinema audiences it is actually a starring vehicle for George Raft. He had made quite an impact in 'Scarface' and here he is top billed for the first time. The studio really wanted him to be a 'Valentino' type and he certainly looks the part in this film. He's the snappiest dresser you ever did see and there's a lot of heavy makeup on his face to accentuate his smouldering good looks. He even gets to take a bath and it's quite obvious he's naked for the scene - it's all geared up to make the ladies in the audience come over all unnecessary! Unfortunately for George he suggested Mae West for a small role in the film and when she appears she hits it like a whirlwind. It's a pretty slow movie and when Mae arrives she knocks it for six with her quick-fire delivery and outrageous behaviour. She may be fat and nearly forty but she is a wow and for those people who suggest she may have been a man in drag just take a look at her in her negligee and you'll see it's quite clear she's all woman!There's not much in the way of a plot, the art direction is nothing to write home about and there's nothing innovative in the way of camera work but it's worth watching to see these two sexy, classic stars make their mark in Hollywood history. If you want to see how they ended up then you should watch 'Sextette' made forty six years later but I don't think I'd recommend it! Enjoy them in their prime!

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.

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.

"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

In particular this is a great showcase for George Raft in his first leading role and Mae West in her first film role. Raft plays Joe Anton, a bootlegger who buys a mansion at a foreclosure auction and turns it into a speakeasy. Anton wants what he thinks the Park Avenue crowd has now that he has the money - class. He employs Mabel Jellyman (Alison Skipworth) to tutor him properly in elocution and current events. But Anton has other troubles with his current life as a gangster besides not knowing what fork to use. Rival gangsters are demanding that he sell out to them or they will rub him out. He has two old girlfriends that keep showing up unannounced too - Maudie (Mae West) is easy going about things, but Iris (Wynne Gibson) is demanding to the point of being violent that their old relationship continue. Matters get really complicated when "a real lady" shows up alone night after night at Joe's speakeasy. She's not looking for a pickup, in fact she shuns advances of any kind. It turns out she's the destitute ex-resident of Joe's mansion who misses her old house and her old life.

If you're looking for a really clever tight script, that doesn't seem to be the purpose of this film. It's just one of Paramount's sophisticated pre-codes with lots of little scenes that make the whole thing worthwhile. The scene with a hung-over Alison Skipworth getting a job offer from Mae West with Skipworth trying to tactfully figure out exactly what business Mae is in is priceless - Skipworth can't help but notice that Maudie (Mae West) is covered in diamonds with no visible means of support. There's been lots of speculation about the nature of the relationship between Joe and his man Friday Leo (Roscoe Karnes) given the rather revealing bath scene the two men are in, but I think that was just an opportunity for a little precode male beefcake.

Highly recommended as one of a very few of the Paramount precodes actually on DVD.