WHILE NEW YORK SLEEPS
US, 1938 63 minutes, Black-and-white.
Michael Whalen, Jean Rogers, Chick Chandler, Robert Kellard, Joan Woodbury, Harold Huber, Marc Lawrence, Sidney Blackmer, William Demarest Cliff Clark, Edward Gargan.
Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone.
A B-budget, supporting feature, a time passer. While there is a murder mystery, there is a strong facetious tone throughout the film, especially with several of the characters involved in elaborate practical jokes – and, one of them, the owner of a nightclub, Marco, played by Harold Huber, continually laughing uproariously at the pranks that he pulls.
While this is a police investigation, the police are too straight up-and-down, leaving the investigation to a top newspaper reporter and his sidekick, Michael Whalen and Chick Chandler.
There have some are murders of couriers carrying bonds. Then a man from a finance company is alleged to have committed suicide. The reporter does not believe this, persuading his editor to print an accusation of murder rather than suicide. The reporter has gone on holidays to write a play – but hurries back for the investigation, continually clashing with the police. And his sidekick takes a lot of important photos.
The main setting is the nightclub, Marco, his sinister sidekick, Happy (Marc Lawrence looking sinister as he did 40 years later in Foul Play – and a career that lasted 70 years, from 1932 to 2003). There is a singer played by Joan Woodbury, a dancer played by Jean Rogers who has a boyfriend from out of town, Robert Kellard. There is also the sinister presence of Sidney Blackmer. On the other hand, there is the enjoyable presence of William Demarest as the rather slow attendant at the bar.
So some romantic complications, a prank set up with Marco to be shot by a blank – but, of course, the villain taking opportunity to shoot him (and he was the receiver of all the stolen bonds).
H. Bruce Humberstone was an actor, a director with a wide range of films from Charlie Chan films in the 30s, to thrillers, then to musicals and comedies.
