Night After Night *** (1932, George Raft, Constance Cummings, Wynne Gibson, Mae West, Alison Skipworth) – Classic Movie Review 7492

Director Archie Mayo’s delicious, flavoursome 1932 Prohibition-era drama about prizefighters, bar rooms and gangsters is an enjoyable romp notable for marking the acting début of one of Hollywood’s greatest stars.

Despite George Raft’s commanding performance as the smoothie gangster Joe Anton, it is Mae West, fourth billed and in her first film role, as the man-hungry, sexually aggressive woman Maudie Triplett, who walks away with the picture. Raft later said of her: ‘West stole everything but the cameras.’

Joe Anton is a successful ex-boxer, known for being ‘shady, sinister and charming’, who opens a speakeasy in the childhood home of a now poor society girl at the time of prohibition.

Night After Night is an extraordinarily assured début from an extraordinary woman – the unique talent and personality who was Mae West. But also Constance Cummings, Wynne Gibson and Alison Skipworth provide the film with extra allure, and there are also performances by Roscoe Karns, Louis Calhern, Bradley Page and Al Hill to enjoy too.

Also in the cast are Harry Wallace, George Templeton, Marty Martyn, Tom Kennedy, Mary Boland, Bill Elliott, Phillips Smalley, Dick Rush, Leo White, Patricia Farley and Dennis O’Keefe as Drunk Sleeping on a Table (uncredited).

Night After Night is directed by Archie Mayo, runs 74 minutes, is made and released by Paramount, is written by Vincent Lawrence, Kathryn Scola, Joseph L Mankiewicz, and Mae West (additional dialogue), Jack Wagner, based on the story Single Night by Louis Bromfield, is shot in black and white by Ernest Haller, is produced by William LeBaron and is scored by Ralph Rainger and Bernard Kaun (stock music, uncredited).

Raft campaigned to have his friend and former employer Texas Guinan cast as Maudie Triplett to launch a film career for her, but Paramount rejected her. After Raft then suggested West, she hated the small size of the supporting role but agreed to play it when Paramount allowed her to rewrite her dialogue. Ironically, West portrays a fictionalised version of Texas Guinan in the film. She starts as she means to go on. In her first scene, when a hat-check girl says: ‘Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!’, West famously replies: ‘Goodness had nothing to do with it’.

West wanted Raft to co-star in her fourth film, Belle of the Nineties, but he turned her down.

There are relatively few Mae West movies – just 12 in all – Night After Night, She Done Him Wrong, I’m No Angel, Belle of the Nineties, Goin’ to Town, Klondike Annie, Go West Young Man, Every Day’s a Holiday, My Little Chickadee, The Heat’s On, Myra Breckinridge and Sextette.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7492

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