Review of All Through the Night (2008) by Van R — 28 Feb 2010

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" (1942) and "Above Suspicion" (1943) before he succumbed to a heart attack in 1943.

Scenarists Leonard "Mystery Street" Spigelgass and Edwin "Larceny, Inc.," Gilbert have penned a top-flight, lightweight, rollicking, white-knuckler that jams our hero up 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 has to stay one step ahead of the police to exonerate himself of charges that he killed Joe Denning (Edward Brophy of â??Freaksâ??).

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." The Bogart protagonist in â??Casablancaâ?? espoused this same isolationist attitude before he converted himself to the Allied cause.

Gloves' problems start when Louie (Phil Silvers of â??Youâ??re In the Army Nowâ??) runs out of Gloves' favorite cheese cake from Miller's Bakery. Gloves swears by Miller's cheesecake.

Indeed, he eats it regularly every day. 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 Gloves about Herman Miller's abrupt disappearance.

Actually, Herman has been murdered and the killer hid Millerâ??s body in the basement of his bakery. After Gloves stumbles onto Miller's corpse, things really begin to click. A mysterious woman visits the shop after another man, the man who killed Miller, has left undetected.

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 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 they can catch the Nazis with their Panzers down. This comment 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 an absolute howler of a scene when Gloves' African-American valet Saratoga (Sam McDaniel of "Three Godfathers") delivers with supreme straight-faced solemnity to Annabelle that "Things ain't as black as they look.

" Sherman keeps things moving in a dead heat as Gloves struggles to elude the police closing in on him 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 light-hearted pre-World War II thrillers.