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All Through the Night 1942
The title of this Humphrey Bogart picture is taken from the Johnny Mercer and Arthur Schwartz song (which is sung in a nightclub sequence) and doesn't provide a clue to what the story is about. Some people might think this is one of the good Bogarts that they've missed; on the contrary it's a sugar-coated anti-Nazi message comedy, and so negligible that you've forgotten it ten minutes after you've staggered out. (It feels long.) Concocted by Leonard Spiegelgass and Edwin Gilbert from a rattlebrained screen story by Spiegelgass and Leonard Ross, and directed (ineptly) by Vincent Sherman, it's set in New York (a studio version) during the Second World War. Bogart is "Gloves" Donohue, a Broadway gambler-promoter, and he and his bunch of meant-to-be-lovable Damon Runyon-esque demi-racketeers (among them Jackie Gleason) rout an entire Nazi fifth column organization, headed by the supersuave Conrad Veidt, dachsund-loving Judith Anderson, and baby-face hit-man Peter Lorre, who operate under cover of an antiques-auction business. The movie oozes sentimentality, and the coy, frolicsome music is like a TV laugh track.
Yeah, I've seen it. Yeah, I agree with Kael. I mean, any Bogart movie is worth a look - he's always good, but the movie is dumb.
Posted by sheila