THIS COULD BE THE NIGHT is the sort of marshmallow fluff that producer Joe Pasternak excelled at, given that expensive gloss that late 1950s MGM movies aspired to. Jean Simmons is a primary school teacher who takes an evening job as a secretary/bookkeeper at the night club run by ex-bootlegger Paul Douglas and his partner, Tony Franciosa (in his first screen role). She's a sheltered creature whom everyone wants to protect, and Tony wants her out of the place, but blah blah blah for an entertaining 105 minutes. Pasternak knew how to hire the talent and bring in the tubs of schmaltz, and director Robert Wise could glop it on flawlessly. Chicken fat on Fluffernutter: no wonder Paul Douglas' character has heartburn.
It's rendered painless by the distraction of various nightclub entertainment numbers like Ray Antony's band, Julie Wilson's singing, Neile Adams as a stripper (who never gets down to less than a bustiere), who wants nothing more than to win a stove and cook pancakes for mother Joan Blondell. It's a Damon Runyon world without the fractured grammar, and carried purely on the charm of the leads. Franciosa seems miscast. Although everyone acts afraid of him, he never impresses me as someone who is actually dangerous, and the plot-driven attraction between him and Simmons never seems more than that. Still, the individual vignettes that make up the movie are amusing and sustain it throughout, even though I need some antacid.
It's rendered painless by the distraction of various nightclub entertainment numbers like Ray Antony's band, Julie Wilson's singing, Neile Adams as a stripper (who never gets down to less than a bustiere), who wants nothing more than to win a stove and cook pancakes for mother Joan Blondell. It's a Damon Runyon world without the fractured grammar, and carried purely on the charm of the leads. Franciosa seems miscast. Although everyone acts afraid of him, he never impresses me as someone who is actually dangerous, and the plot-driven attraction between him and Simmons never seems more than that. Still, the individual vignettes that make up the movie are amusing and sustain it throughout, even though I need some antacid.