Night After Night

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Night After Night

Directed by	Archie Mayo
Written by	Louis Bromfield Kathryn Scola
Starring	Mae West George Raft Constance Cummings
Release date(s)	October 30, 1932
Running time	73 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

Night After Night is a 1932 Paramount Pictures drama motion picture starring Mae West, George Raft and Constance Cummings. Others in the cast include Wynne Gibson, Alison Skipworth, Roscoe Karns, Louis Calhern, and Bradley Page.

Directed by Archie Mayo, it was adapted for the screen by Vincent Lawrence and Kathryn Scola, based on the Cosmopolitan magazine story Single Night by Louis Bromfield, with West allowed to contribute to her lines of dialogue.

Although Night After Night is not a comedy, it has many comedic moments, especially with the comic relief of West, who plays a supporting role in her screen debut. West portrays a fictionalized version of Texas Guinan and the film remains primarily remembered as the launching pad for her career.

[edit] Synopsis

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The setting is New York City during prohibition. A successful former boxer, Joe Anton (played by Raft), buys a mansion at public auction and converts it into a high-class speakeasy.

Joe is not content with his life and wants to elevate himself into the upper class of society. He considers selling the nightclub. As he takes a bath and talks to his assistant and friend, Leo (played by Karns), he tells him that he is sick of the smell of booze, the noise, and being a pal to a lot of drunks. He says he is not getting anyplace.

Though he is not a gangster, Joe has business dealings with them. Frankie Guard (played by Page), a mob leader and speakeasy rival who wants to get rid of the competition, meets with Joe and offers to buy his club for fifty grand. Realizing he is being "squeezed," Joe's counteroffer is two hundred and fifty grand. When he refuses to sell for less, Frankie threatens that he will soon be "visited" and asks him what kind of flowers he prefers (for his funeral). "Oh, anything at all, except pansies," Joe replies. Frankie promises his last wish will be fulfilled.

Joe hires Miss Mabel Jellyman (played by Skipworth), a very proper middle-aged schoolteacher and speech coach, to improve his rough way of talking as well as his knowledge of acceptable subjects of conversation and the refinements of life.

He has also grown tired of his girlfriend, Iris Dawn (played by Gibson). He becomes interested in a glamorous young woman (played by Cummings) who has been sitting alone at a table for three nights in a row. He interferes when a drunk bothers her and they become acquainted. He learns that this unescorted beauty is Miss Jerry Healy and that her once wealthy family was ruined by the Depression. She goes on to explain that the reason she has been haunting his establishment night after night is because she used to live there. She was, in fact, born there.

He promises to take her on a tour of the house. Her rich playboy fiancé, Dick Bolton (played by Calhern), then discovers her at the table and they discuss how she has second thoughts about marrying him. Joe then returns to show Jerry more attention, take care of her tab and escort her to a taxi.

His ex-girlfriend, Iris, is angered by his interest in Jerry. "I'm not gonna lose nothin', either," she says, to Leo. "He's mine and no gal from Park Avenue can come in and take him away from me. Polite! That's what I don't like about it. A mug trying to be a gentleman. What's got into him, Leo? He ain't the same guy anymore."

"I don't know," Leo replies. "He just wants to injure himself, I guess."

At the taxi door, Joe invites Jerry to a private, quiet dinner at the club the next night. She is enthralled by his interest in her. "You lead a happy life, don't you?" she says. "The pirate of today. Happy days. You have something you must never lose, something different. I don't know exactly what it is, well -- exciting, or is it my imagination?" She accepts his invitation.

Joe makes elaborate plans to put on an intimate dinner party at the club with his speech coach serving as host and chaperone. He coaches Miss Jellyman on impressing Jerry.

"I gotta make a hit with her. I got to impress her. I got to. And you gotta help me. I want us to talk about things that will make her think that I'm a big-leaguer."

The following evening, as Joe is having his private dinner upstairs with Jerry and Miss Jellyman, who is excited about dining in a speakeasy, another ex-girlfriend, Maudie Triplett (played by West), makes a memorable entrance into the establishment.

She is well-dressed, covered with jewels and surrounded by men, and somewhat brash and vulgar. As she waits to be let in, the doorman looks through the peephole, and asks, "Who is it?"

"The fairy princess, ya mug!" she replies.

Maudie flounces into the nightclub, as she wisecracks and uses double entendres with broad humor, and rouses the place. When she walks to the coat check room, the girl looks over at her jewelry and exclaims, "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!"

"Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie," Maudie replies.

She then swaggers upstairs and crashes the dinner. Greeting Joe loudly, she says, "Joey. Joey. Well, well. Come here and kiss me, ya dog. Let's take a look at ya. Who's the dames?"

She is introduced to the two ladies. Jerry seems quite impressed by her, and asks, "What's your name?"

"Maudie Triplett. One of the bluebloods from Kentucky. And if you don't like the color, honey, we'll change it." She then orders a chair from one of the waiters, and quips, "Service here is terrific."

Miss Jellyman is shocked as Maudie wreaks havoc with the proper arrangements at the table and Joe is embarrassed. Among Maudie's fast and furious dialogue, she says, "I could go for some of that in the bottle," and, as she pulls him toward her for a kiss, "Oh Joe, it's just life to see ya. Come here, crawl to me, baby."

Later, Joe takes Jerry on the house tour as the bawdy and boozing Maudie and a tipsy Miss Jellyman sit and talk.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" the older woman asks.

"I dunno," Maudie replies. "But it saves an awful lot of time."

Maudie recalls what Joe was like in the past. "When I first met him, he was a third-rate part. But I always said he had the makings, Mabel." Maudie offers her more to drink. "Your glass is empty! Now listen, Mabel, if you're gonna be Broadway, you gotta learn to take it. And you may as well break in the act right now."

"Maudie, do you really think I could get rid of my inhibitions?" asks Miss Jellyman.

"Why sure!" Maudie replies. "I got an old trunk you can put 'em in."

During the house tour, Jerry remembers things from her family's past. When Joe is called away to do business with Frankie Guard, Leo advises him that he should not set his sights on high society. "Don't sell the place. I know what you're aimin' at, kid, but you ain't gonna make it. Stay on your own side of the fence."

"How do you know what my side of the fence is?" Joe asks, offended.

In a surprising turnaround, Frankie offers two hundred grand for the club and Joe quickly agrees. In the meantime, his jealous ex-girlfriend angrily speaks to Jerry.

"When I say I'm warnin' you, Miss Park Avenue, that means I'm warnin' ya!" she shouts.

Joe orders Leo to escort Iris out of the club. As she is taken down the stairs, she says, "That's what you get for lovin' a guy, the air. Ah, don't throw me out, Leo. Look, if I promise ya I won't make no trouble. Just let me stay near him. He won't know I'm here. I swear I won't do nothin'. I'll go crazy, hear. I swear I won't do nothin'. I'll go crazy out there on the street. Please."

Leo is persuaded by her pleas and allows her to stay. During the continuation of the house tour, vengeful Iris confronts Joe and Jerry with a loaded pistol in the bedroom.

"Nobody turns me down. Noboby," she says. "Get over there Miss Park Avenue. Come on down Joe."

He distracts and overpowers her, forcing the gun to shoot wildly as Jerry witnesses the struggle. After Iris is led away, Joe apologizes to Jerry. "I'm awfully sorry that this had to happen," he says. But she is visibly excited. "I'm not," she replies. "I loved it, Pirate." She then kisses him before leaving for the evening.

Joe suffers from insomnia that night. "She kissed me," he says, amazed. "She must love me." Leo bets him $10 that he will never see her again, thinking that he has gone love-crazy.

The following afternoon, Miss Jellyman suffers from a severe hangover. "The price of pleasure," she says, bemoaning the reason for her headache. Maudie offers her a drink to get her back on her feet. Miss Jellyman suddenly realizes that she has missed teaching her morning class and Maudie suggests another possibility of employment.

"Why dearie, you're wasting your time," she says. "Why, a gal with your poise and class, why you'd make thousands in my business. It's one of the best paying rackets in the world."

Miss Jellyman assumes the worst about what Maudie's dubious profession is, obviously suspecting that she is a prostitute or a madam.

"I recognize that your business has been a great factor in the building of civilization," she says. "And of course, it has protected our good women and thereby preserved the sanctity of the home. And there were such woman as Cleopatra. But me, dear? Don't you think I'm just a little old?"

"Say, what kind of a business do you think I'm in?" Maudie asks, as she seriously thinks over Miss Jellyman's assumption. "Say, listen dearie, you got me all wrong. I've got a chain of beauty parlors." She offers Miss Jellyman $100 a week to be a distinguished-looking hostess in her new New York establishment.

When Jerry does not return to the club or get in touch with him, Joe orders Leo to locate her, even if it means calling all 1,700 Healys in the phone book. Joe rushes to her apartment when she is located. She is surprised to see him. After he notices two photographs of Dick Bolton in her bedroom, he decides to kiss her without warning.

She is taken aback. "Well, it's rather sudden, isn't it?" Joe has misinterpreted events from the previous night. She kissed him only because of the thrill of the moment and not because of love.

"I thought that you might be in love with me, see?" he says. "And believe it or not, I came over to ask you to marry me." She is sorry for the misunderstanding.

"Well anyway, it didn't mean nothin'," he says. "Yeah, the pirates of the day are pretty dumb. So long. No hard feelings, and you'll drop into 55 again, maybe."

Jerry informs him that any future visits to his club may not be possible. She and Dick Bolton are soon going abroad and they will be married, even though she is not in love with him.

"Don't tell me you're marryin' him for his dough?" he says. "I had an idea that up in this part of the world there was something worth the getting, and I went after it. But I see now it was just my imagination. You're just another dame with a skirt on, and there's no difference between you and Iris except the way you manicure your nails. I've got nothing but contempt for you. You're just nothing to me, just nothing at all. And if I was a pirate and I had you on my ship, I wouldn't toss you to the crew."

She then orders him out. He then changes his mind about selling his speakeasy and informs Frankie Guard that the deal is off. Frankie threatens more trouble.

Leo, pleased that Joe is back to his old self again, says, "That'a boy. Back in your own backyard, huh?"

Joe also cancels his lessons with Miss Jellyman. "No more gentleman stuff for me," he says.

Maudie agrees. "What's the sense of tryin' to be somethin' that you're not. This guy was all right in the first place. You only thought you were wrong, didn't ya, kid. Come on, snap out of it, ya dog!"

Jerry then storms into the club to confront Joe. "No man can say the things he said to me and get away with it!" she tells Leo. In his bedroom, she smashes most of the framed pictures on the walls. Hearing the loud crashing noise, Joe comes in and finds her.

As Frankie Guard and a group of gangsters arrive at the front of the club, Jerry vents her anger at Joe and herself.

"Well, you were right, weren't you? You said I was a lot of things. You don't know how right you were. There's nobody as bad as I am, nobody. So you wouldn't throw me to the crew, huh? You said I was like Iris and I'm here to prove it."

Joe understands what is behind her feelings. "It proves that you are a lady and a little stuck on me, at that." He pulls her toward him and kisses her repeatedly, as she struggles and then goes limp in his arms.

Downstairs, loud gunshots signal Frankie's attack on the place. Joe and a gang of his men grab guns from the closet rack to defend themselves. Jerry begs him not to go and confesses how much he means to her in a last-minute turnabout.

"You can't go down there. I love you. I didn't know it, but I do now. You were right. That's why I came back. Oh, I do love you."

Joe is informed that Frankie's gang is wrecking everything and he replies, "Tell 'em to stop. They're only wrecking their own joint." He then kisses Jerry passionately as Maudie and Miss Jellyman appear.

Miss Jellyman corrects Joe's use of the word "joint," and wisecracking Maudie delivers the movie's final fade-out line, "Come on, Mabel, get out those books. Looks like it's gonna take more lessons."