SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

hwg1957-102-265704 At only 58 minutes the film packs a lot of drama into its running time. Murder, humour, adultery, violence, philosophy, dancing, tragedy and love to name a few. It is impressively filmed from the saucy opening montage to the final scene in the snowy street. Set in a nightclub over one night it weaves together several stories, light and dark. Tim the Doorman says of the people in the night club,"Most all them folks is starving for something, and it ain't food."The cast is fine; Lew Ayres as the deeply troubled young man, Boris Karloff as the club owner beset by gangsters and his unfaithful wife, Dorothy Revier as the wife, Russell Hopton as the 'other man', Byron Foulger as a very gay man and the great Clarence Muse as the doorman worrying about his sick wife. One of the club dancers is played by Mae Clarke and she is the shining centre of the film. Clarke gives a feisty and radiant performance. It baffles one how under used she was in films and never got to be a big star. It has been called a low budget 'Grand Hotel' but it stands on its own very well.

Richard Chatten The opening montage of this delirious slice of pre-Code life amounts virtually to a declaration of intent, as various New Yorkers hit the town in pursuit of sex, booze and violence. You can practically hear the scratch of pencils from the bluestockings in the audience whose increasingly persistent calls to put a stop to the depiction of just this sort of depravity would soon, alas, be calling the shots in Hollywood. In just 58 minutes, 'Night World' depicts illegal booze ("they can make it faster than you can drink it"), homosexuality (in the flouncing form of "MISTER Baby", played by a very young Byron Foulger before he grew his moustache) and adultery as facts of life; and comes dangerously close to condoning the latter in the scene in which Hedda Hopper appears as Lew Ayres' ghastly mother who shot his father for an improbably innocent dalliance with another woman. (It also takes a rather callously casual view of violent death when the bullets start seriously flying in the film's finale).A couple of previous reviewers have compared 'Night World' to a low rent 'Grand Hotel'; with Merritt Gerstad's extraordinarily mobile camera weaving it's way throughout the joint picking up one set of characters and then another rather as Robert Altman would later do. Presiding over 'Happy's Place' is a tall, lisping, English-accented proprietor called "Happy" MacDonald, played by - of all people - a third-billed and fascinatingly miscast Boris Karloff. The women all look magnificent - all that bobbed hair and bare shoulders! - and a sweet blonde Mae Clarke is permitted a sunnier characterisation than we are accustomed to seeing her get a chance to play. It's a blast to see her actually dancing in the lineup on the floor show (with appropriately lascivious choreography courtesy of Busby Berkeley himself)! The name of the prolific Hobart Henley often crops up in filmographies from the early thirties, but after 'Night World' he only directed one more film. On the strength of this I'd sure like to see some of his others.

MartinHafer You can certainly tell that "Night World" is a pre-code picture. It's set in a speakeasy--just the sort of sordid locale that wouldn't have been allowed after the new Production Code went into effect in mid-1934. Of course, by then alcohol was legal and speakeasies were a thing of the past anyways. The film is very much like a soap opera--with a variety of folks and love affairs going on during the course of the picture.Several story lines are going on at the same time in this film and at then end, they all converge. One story is about the owners of the club, Happy (Boris Karloff) and Jill. However, Jill is cheating on her hubby and the way this story ends is pure dynamite. The main story involves a young man who's been drinking himself into oblivion (Lew Ayres). Why and his relationship with a girl who works in the club (Mae Clark) is fascinating. Finally, the doorman (Clarence Muse) has something going on with his sick wife. Again, all three stories converge at the end for a very slick and tense finale.I rarely give short films like this such high scores. However, with this one, the writing was so good and the ending so enjoyable I highly recommend it. Thrilling and enjoyable throughout.By the way, the dance numbers, though smaller in scale than his trademark choreography, were directed by Busby Berkeley.

whpratt1 "Happy" MacDonald (Boris Karloff) plays the owner of a night club and his wife "Mrs. Mac" (Dorothy Revier) works as a cashier at the same club. She has an affair with Klauss(Russell Hopton)the dance manager of the club's floor show. Ruth Taylor (Mae Clarke) is the club's leading dancer, and becomes friends with Michael Rand(Lew Ayres). A gangster tries to sell MacDonald bootleg liquor, but Karloff refuses. The bootlegger returns with a gunman who kills MacDonald(Karloff) and his wife,"Mrs. Mac". Karloff with his English accent does not sound like a gangster from New York and it was better he died quicky in this film along with his wife. This was a film with great actors and actresses and very poor writers and direction.