The Night of January 16th ** (1941, Robert Preston, Ellen Drew, Nils Asther) – Classic Movie Review 10,797

Director William Clemens’s 1941 Paramount Pictures black and white mystery crime drama B-movie The Night of January 16th stars Ellen Drew as secretary Kit Lane who is actually the brunt of an embezzlement scam involving a vanished $20million, which her boss, tycoon Bjorn Faulkner (Nils Asther), has to explain away to his board of directors. Then she is implicated in his supposed murder, and it is up to kindly, truth-seeking young new board member Steve Van Ruyle (Robert Preston) to bail her out of trouble.

The cast are appealing, and Drew and Preston make an attractive star couple. But this rather dully acted stage-to-screen transfer, from the play Woman on Trial by esteemed Ayn (The Fountainhead) Rand, is insufficiently reworked for the cinema, with uninspired, creak direction by Clemens, and, with its far-fetched mystery and synthetic atmosphere, isn’t much of a story anyway. However, Drew, Preston and Cecil Kellaway do their best with the material, it’s just a pity about the mystery and the studio bound, stage bound production.

Ayn Rand disliked the title The Night of January 16th, preferring her original Woman on Trial, and she disliked the amateurish adaptation of her play.

It is shot in the Paramount Studios, 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood.

Also in the cast are Margaret Hayes, Donald Douglas, Rod Cameron, Alice White, Cecil Kellaway, Clarence Kolb, Roy Gordon, Harry Hayden, Edwin Stanley, Paul Stanton, Willard Robertson, James Flavin, Sam Ash, Leon Belasco, Jack Carr, Edgar Dearing, Byron Foulger, Edward Gargan, Arthur Loft, Martin Garralaga, Pedro Regas, Georges Renavent, Rafael Storm, Philip Van Zandt and Pat West.

The Night of January 16th is directed by William Clemens, runs 80 minutes, is made by Paramount Pictures, is written by Delmer Daves, Robert Pirosh and Eve Greene, based on the play Woman on Trial by Ayn Rand, is shot in black and white by John J Mescall, is produced by Sol C Siegel, is scored by John Leipold, Victor Young and Gerard Carbonara, and designed by Hans Dreier.

In the stage play, the jury was selected from the audience at each performance, and different endings were used as to how the jury voted.

The story is based loosely on that of Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish ‘Match King’ businessman who made and lost a fortune.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,797

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