Night in New Orleans (1942)

Pretty Good

Fresh and Exciting

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

NIGHT IN NEW ORLEANS 1942This Paramount Pictures low rent programmer stars, Preston Foster, Albert Dekker and Patricia Morrison.Foster and Dekker are both Lieutenants in the New Orleans Police Department. They are both in competition for one opening as a Police Captain.Foster is married to Patricia Morrison. Foster is out one fog filled night trying to retrieve some letters Morrison had written a former paramour. The letters could be taken wrong if they hit the papers etc. The problem for Foster is that he finds the man who has the letters, dead, with several large bullet holes in him. Foster rifles the man's desk and grabs up the letters, then beats the feet home.Needless to say there are several witnesses who see him leave the house and street. When the body is found, Lt Dekker gets the call. He soon discovers that Foster was seen in the area at the time of death. Bingo, he has a suspect, Policeman or not.The rest of the 75 minute runtime is spent chasing down the clues that pop up one after the other. First, Foster is the lead suspect, then, both the dead man's brothers top the list, then, it is the dead man's bodyguard followed by a singer at a hot New Orleans night spot. This one hops all over the place before disclosing the real killer in the last two minutes.Also in the cast is Dooley Wilson as Foster's butler and driver. Dooley would later claim cinematic immortality as "Sam" the piano player in, CASABLANCA. Look close and you will see Dorothy Dandridge in a small un-billed part.The film moves right along with veteran low budget helmsman, William Clemens, at the controls. Clemens directed several of the popular NANCY DREW mysteries as well as three or four of the FALCON series. Not a bad little whodunit type bit of entertainment.

Not uninteresting, but not fantastic either. I did not know that William Clemens made films for Paramount Pictures, only Warner and RKO. OK, it's a routine mystery, private eye and investigation yarn. Preston Foster is very cool in this lead character, but as I said just before, you have already seen this a million times before. Jonathan Latimer wrote some stories for Paramount and a couple of John Farrow's films: THE BIG CLOCK, if I am not wrong. And of course he also wrote this one. An acceptable time waster, rare and worth watching.We may expect some surprise that never come. That could have been cool too, for the audience, not the lead character.Good standard little crime movie typically from the early forties.