All Through the Night (1942)

Perfect cast and a good story

One of my all time favorites.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Great film fare with an all-star cast, each performer perfect for the role they were assigned in the film.A comic blend of a bunch of gamblers, led by Humphrey Bogart, who stumble on Nazi spies in New York planning sabotage throughout New York and elsewhere during World War 11.When the bakery owner of the cheesecake that Bogart loves to eat is murdered, his mother, Jane Darwell, has her suspicions and one thing leads to another in the discovery of the Nazi plot. Of course, along the way, Bogie is blamed for another killing and all murders are done by the usual diabolical Peter Lorre. As Nazi spies, Conrad Veidt and Judith Anderson are perfect for their roles, and that dress that Anderson wears shows once more her sinister ways. Ironically, though they weren't in scenes together, 2 years before this film, Darwell won the best supporting Oscar for a woman for "The Grapes of Wrath," besting Anderson for her memorable turn as Mrs. Danvers in the Oscar-winning film "Rebecca."Frank McHugh and William Demarest provide comic relief in this film as well as the fast-talking but tough Bogart. Karen Verne is the girl forced to work for the Nazis as her father is in Dachau.Even when the spy ring is exposed, the police have a hard time in believing Bogart even with Verne's back-up.

Humphrey Bogart battles a secret Nazi organisation in this 1942 comedy/thriller. Bogart was by now a star, courtesy of "The Maltese Falcon" movie from the previous year. "All Through the Night" is undemanding fun, intrigue and thrills all the way. Young actors like Phil Silvers and Jackie Gleason make early film appearances and for "Warner Bros" regular Frank McHugh, it was one of his last regular films. Bogart and his New York mob stumble upon a group of Nazis who plan to overthrow the city. There are many scenes involving skirmishes with the enemy and encounters with a pretty, young female. One of my favourite bits, is when Bogart and one of his men manage to escape the clutches of the Nazis by the skin of their teeth! Conrad Veidt makes for a marvellous villain and Peter Lorre is his usual creepy self! The pace enables this film to rattle along quite agreeably and there are some funny moments too.

Humphrey Bogart tangles with treacherous Nazi spies in director Vincent Sherman's "All Through the Night," a witty World War II propaganda thriller that takes place before Uncle Sam entered the war against the Axis. "All Through the Night" boasts a terrific, top-notch supporting cast featuring Judith Anderson, Jane Darwell, Jackie C. Gleason, Phil Silvers, Peter Lorre, and William Demarest. Perennial Nazi impersonator but real-life German Jew Conrad Veidt of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" battles with Bogart in this serio-comic espionage melodrama. A year later Bogart and Veidt locked horns again in Michael Curtiz's Oscar-winning romance "Casablanca," and Veidt played more Nazis in MGM's "Nazi Agent" and "Above Suspicion" before he succumbed to a heart attack in 1943. Scenarist Leonard "Mystery Street" Spigelgass and Edwin "Larceny, Inc.," Gilbert have penned a top-flight, lightweight, rollicking, white-knuckler that puts our hero between a rock and a hard place. "All Through the Night" resembles classic Hitchcock thrillers like "The 39 Steps" and "North by Northwest." Our wrongly accused hero stays one step ahead of the police to exonerate himself of charges he murdered a nightclub owner. Anybody who loves off-beat Humphrey Bogart movies will enjoy this humorous hokum."All Through the Night" opens with a group of Runyonesque Broadway gamblers sitting around a table discussing the combustible European predicament. Mr. Alfred 'Gloves' Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) interrupts their heated conversation. One of Gloves' minions, Sunshine (William Demarest of "Escape from Fort Bravo"), explains what they've been doing with toy soldiers and tanks on the table in front of them, "Just showing how England can win the war." An amused Gloves chuckles, "I'll arrange a conference between you and Churchill." Sunshine points out, "Don't you think it's time you got your mind out of the sports section and on to the front page." Gloves dismisses Sunshine's suggestion, "That's Washington's racket, let them handle it." Gloves' problems start when Louie (Phil Silvers) runs out of Gloves' favorite cheese cake from Miller's Bakery. Gloves swears by Miller's cheesecake. When Louie tries to substitute an inferior brand, Gloves busts him in a heartbeat. Later, Gloves' mother 'Ma' Donahue (Jane Darwell of "The Grapes of Wrath")begins to worry him about Mr. Miller's disappearance. When Gloves stumbles onto Miller's corpse in the shop basement, things really begin to click. The NYPD is suspicious about Gloves from the start, but they don't arrest him until they find one of his gloves next to the body of a dead nightclub owner. Everything hinges on finding a young vocalist Miss Leda Hamilton (Kaaren Verne of "A Bullet for Joey") that was seen with Miller before he died. As it turns out, Franz Ebbing (Conrad Veidt) and his second-in-command Pepi (Peter Lorre of "M") are planning a 9/11 style terrorist attack not unlike a similar act of sabotage in Alfred Hitchcock's own "Saboteur" with Robert Cummings about Nazis blowing up a ship in New York harbor.Jane Darwell of "The Grapes of Wrath" is hilarious as Gloves' presumptuous mom who constantly interferes in her son's affairs. She gets Gloves into real trouble when she follows Miss Hamilton to the Duchess Club, night spot run by Marty Callahan (Barton MacLane of "High Sierra"),and Marty summons Gloves to get his mother off his hands. Lorre is particularly nasty as Ebbing's right-hand man. One of the greatest running gags in "All Through the Night" concerns Gloves' flustered chauffeur Barney (Frank McHugh of "Bullets or Ballots") who has just been married and cannot convince Gloves to let him have time enough to consummate his marriage. The Production Code Administration cautioned Warner Brothers about a lot of subversive dialogue with regard to Barney's situation. Apparently, some kind of deal was struck between Jack Warner and Joseph I. Breen over the salacious content of the dialogue. In the opening scene, for example, Sunshine argues that they can catch the Nazis with their Panzers down, a comment that drew the wrath of the Production Code, because of the implied sexuality in the remark. Nevertheless, the line made it into the film. Despite its racist content, there is a howler of a scene when Gloves' African-American valet Saratoga (Sam McDaniel of "Three Godfathers") delivers with supreme straight-faced solemnity to Miss Hamilton that "Things ain't as black as they look." Sherman keeps things moving in a dead heat as Gloves struggles to elude the police and get the goods on Ebbing and his dastardly bunch. Another hilarious scene occurs at an auction with some incredibly funny dialogue that sounds more like gibberish than actual words."All Through the Night" runs a close second to Raoul Walsh's Errol Flynn actioneer "Desperate Journey" as one of the best pre-World War II thrillers.

This wartime film is many things, I suggest: a crackling good mystery caper; a delightful comedy; an effective propaganda piece again Nazis; and a delightful comedy all rolled into one. The heart of the story is Alfred "Gloves" Donahue, played by Humphrey Bogart. He and his small mob of Damon Runyonesque holdovers from the 1930s are living on Bogart's brain as a smart gambler. He has a house, a servant, cuddly mobsters played by William Demarest, Frank McHugh and Jackie Gleason, and a mother in the person of Jane Darwell. Her 'feeling" that something is wrong involves him in the murder of his friend Miller, maker of his daily cheesecake, and in the pursuit of a girl played by Kaaren Verne implicated in the man's death. He tracks her to a nightclub owned by another veteran of Prohibition, Barton MacLane and his second Edward Brophy as "Joe". Bogart questions Verne who seems troubled, and argues with her pianist, Pepi, played by Peter Lorre. Suspecting something is wrong, after agreeing under pressure to leave the place, Bogart returns and finds Joe dying; the man holds up one open hand--then expires. Bogart forgets a glove and is fingered as Joe's killer by an angry MacLane. Deciding to avoid the cops, whom he hears on the radio are after him, Bogart takes Demarest with him to search a suspect building instead. Demarest is kidnapped; and searching for him, Bogart has to kill a man who tries to murder him; the assassin falls to his death. Bogart continues his search of the building while his assistant, McHugh waits in an auction gallery. Bogart has met the leader of the bad guys, and his assistant, played by Conrad Veidt and Judith Anderson. He tries to rescue Verne, but she clobbers him to save him from being shot by Pepi from behind. McHugh is thrown out of the gallery, but when Verne returns, she helps a tied up Bogart and Demarest to escape. Instead, he rifles a desk then goes after Ebbing (Veidt), knocks him out and forces Verne to go with them as they escape. The three fugitives race into Central Park, pursued by a car filled with villains. While Bogart dispatches one of them, Verne--who has revealed she's only been helping the bad guys' scheme to save her father--finds a paper Bogart had picked up, along with an address book earlier, revealing that her father is dead. Bogart and Verne book a room and then send for the police; but Ebbing captures them first and turns them over to the police, before vanishing. Bogart and Verne try to explain what's going on to Lt. Forbes, played by James Burke; they go back to the building--but the evidence has all been removed. So Bogart escapes, in a hail of bullets. Back at Bogart's house, MacLane breaks in on Donahue's people, to take him in for having killed his partner. Bogart has arrived, just in time to tell him he's found "fifth columnists"--"five" was what a dying Joe tried to warn him about with his upraised hand. Finding the place to which Ebbing has moved a big meeting he talked about earlier, Bogart and Demarest replace two men they slug and end up addressing that meeting as "munitions experts" from out of town, after Ebbing had spoken of the group's glorious coming 'action'. Bogart figures out the action--mines planted in the way of a US destroyer in the harbor. MacLane and Bogart's men arrive just then to overwhelm the pro-Nazis; but Bogart follows Ebbing who runs out--and is captured and forced to drive a powerboat Ebbing has prepared to ram into the destroyer, now that the original plan has been stopped, in a suicidal act of defiance. This synopsis may sound like an adventure; but the film is handled with verve and style as a comedy by all concerned. Vincent Sherman directed, admirably, from a literate script by Leo Rosten, Leonard Spigelgass and Edwin Gilbert. Bogart is very good as Gloves, with Veidt, Ludwig Stossell, Peter Lorre and Burke taking second honors. Kaaren Verne, Wallace Ford, Phil Silvers, William Demarest, Frank McHugh and Jackie Gleason are all fine. Martin Kosleck, Jean Ames, Irene Seidner, Emory Parnell, Ben Welden, Sam McDaniel and Jane Darwell and Judith Anderson round out the main cast. Jerry Wald produced with Hal B. Wallis; Sindey Hickox did a sterling job as director photography, in a film eerily presaging "the Untouchables" TV show. Max Parker did the art direction, with gowns by Howard Shoup. This is a surprising, inventive and entertaining film, I argue, one whose dialogue is played to the hilt by all concerned. The gag lines hold up surprisingly well, it is an attractively mounted and a thoroughgoing sleeper as an entertainment piece. I recommend it highly.