In some of my other reviews that talk about movies made during World War 2 (such as Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator) I mention how many people back then all over the world were afraid of Hitler, and many films chose to make fun of him to make him seem less threatening. All Through the Night is a little known but interesting production from 1942, shortly after America's entry into the war. It has this strange habit of mixing in funny dialogue with serious situations, which you might or might not like. The film starts with a gambler in New York City named Gloves Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) ordering a cheesecake at a restaurant he frequents. Upon tasting it, he knows it isn't the kind he asked for. Someone named Mr. Miller typically makes the cake, but he's missing now for some strange reason. Meanwhile, Miller is confronted by a man named Pepi (Peter Lorre), who tries to threaten him into doing something, and then shoots him after pushing him down some stairs. Once Gloves finds out about Miller, he goes to a nightclub where he meets a singer named Leda (Kaaren Verne), whom he believes knows something about Miller. Pepi, who plays piano at this club, brings Leda to a room, closes the door, and shoots the friend of the club's owner, Marty. By the time Gloves figures out what has happened, Pepi leaves in a car with Leda. Before he dies, the guy holds up 5 fingers so Gloves knows who abducted Leda, but Gloves is confused. Not only this, but he leaves one of his gloves next to the guy's corpse. After the cops get the wrong idea and try to track down Gloves for supposedly killing the man, Gloves arrives at an auction house owned by Hall Ebbing (Conrad Veidt). Pepi is here too, and this is the place he is hiding Leda in. After trying to pass himself off as a bidder, Gloves tries to confront Ebbing but is knocked out by Leda. Gloves learns that he is to be shipped to New Jersey in a wooden crate, so he later manages to escape, along with his friend Sunshine who was also captured. After searching the place they're being held in, they come across a storage room filled with maps, a large radio, swastika banners, and a painting of Hitler. Gloves and Sunshine now realize they're dealing with Nazi fifth columnists, which is what that guy meant by holding up his hand earlier. After managing to escape with Leda, the group are chased by Ebbing and some of his henchmen, and Gloves learns that Leda's father was killed in Dachau concentration camp. Soon, the cops come to the auction house and look in the same room where Gloves saw all the nazi imagery, but the police find it totally empty. Frustratingly, the police believe Gloves is the criminal instead of Ebbing, and they try to arrest him, but he dives into a river. Leda is then kidnapped by Ebbing, but Gloves, now having an alliance with Marty's nightclub boys, pursues him. Sunshine and Gloves eventually come to a large underground complex swarming with nazis, and they manage to gain entry by beating two guards and taking their ID's. At the meeting being held here, Gloves learns that they are planning to drop mines off the coast of Brooklyn and bomb a battleship using a boat loaded with explosives. Marty's gang ambushes the meeting, a large fight ensues, and Ebbing tries to convince Pepi to join him in the terrorist attack on the battleship. Pepi says he's not going, so his boss shoots him dead. Gloves goes to the docks to try and stop the suicide attack, but Ebbing gets there first and forces Gloves at gunpoint into the boat. Ebbing tells Gloves he will be killed if he doesn't ram the boat into the battleship, so he may as well do it. With the ship in sight, Gloves accelerates, then suddenly turns hard and falls out of the boat. The boat, Ebbing still inside, crashes into a barge and explodes. The movie ends with the cops dropping their vendetta against Gloves, and the mayor is going to honor him soon. Although I thought this movie was pretty good, it has two notable downsides; the plot's complexity and the length. I've seen many movies longer than this, but this one felt really long to me for some reason. I knew the movie was going to end with the nazis being defeated, so I kind of just wanted to see Bogart get through with them as fast as possible. The dialogue is also quite strange for a movie like this, since it has a lot of humorous lines which manage to destroy the serious atmosphere very effectively. It's just hard to take something like nazis infiltrating America seriously when you have Bogart ranting about cheesecake 2 minutes in. I did at least appreciate how well Conrad Veidt was able to play the leader of the nazis in this movie. He's suitably intelligent and villainous, always able to mentally stay ahead of Bogart at every turn. Ironically, in real life, Veidt was forced to flee Germany after Hitler became chancellor and start a new life in america. Overall, this movie might not be one of Bogart's best, but it does at least feature a lot of action and have a storyline connected with World War 2.
Review of All Through the Night
