All Through The Night (1942) ***

Release Date: January 10, 1942

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt, Kaaren Verne, Peter Lorre

Directed By: Vincent Sherman

A cursory glance at the plot of All Through The Night will yield a poor perception of this film. It’s plot involving kidnapping, murder and undercover Nazis plotting sabotage would seem like a typical early World War II film when the Nazi scare was at it’s infancy. Yet the serious topic that makes up the backbone of this film is juxtaposed with a degree of humor not quite as dense as that of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator but at times nearly as silly. It is an odd mixture of comedy, satire and legitimate suspense that makes it hard to pigeonhole it in any way.

Alfred “Gloves” Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) is a big shot Broadway gambler who loves his cheesecake. Not just any cheesecake, though, but only that of Miller’s bakery. When Miller disappears, Gloves’s mother is suspicious of foul play and insists he look into it. A quick investigation reveals the baker has been killed. At the crime scene a nightclub singer, Leda Hamilton (Kaaren Verne) shows up looking for Miller. When she hears he is dead she disappears without explanation. When Gloves traces her back to the club it leads to more murder, this time with evidence left behind implicating Gloves, himself. The plot thickens as Gloves must hide out from the police as well as prove his innocence, leading him and his men to uncover a conspiracy involving Nazi fifth columnists, Nazis undercover with the intent to undermine the USA, and a plot to destroy a battleship in New York harbor. With no proof but his own word, Gloves cannot rely on the police to help stop these men and their deadly plots.

Based on that plot summary alone it would seem like this is just another in a long line of us vs them films. Back in the 1940’s everyone was churning out films about the evil Nazis or the Japanese, especially during the early stages of the war where the real horrors of what was going on over there were not yet fully known. Chaplin took shots at Hitler. The Three Stooges tackled both the Germans and the Japanese. Even Looney Tunes had their fair share of shorts addressing the subject. While this is nowhere near as broad as those were, it nevertheless attacks its subject with tongue firmly in mouth. This is evident from the very first scene where Bogart is sitting in a cafe enjoying his meal while the servers are stressing out over a missing delivery of Miller’s cheesecake. Gloves is accompanied by two comedic legends, Phil Silvers, who was already an established performer at this time, and Jackie Gleason who was relatively new when this was filmed. Both actors were on contract, getting paid while having no projects to work on and thus were shoehorned into this film. Neither is in top form here but Phil Silvers manages to bring in some of his manic energy into the scenes towards the end of the film. Between the two of them, Bogart and the rest of his men, there is some hilarious double-talk and witty dialogue that sets you up for what kind of a film this will be.

The tone shifts however whenever we are away from Gloves and his men. We see this when the baker, Miller, is confronted by Pepi (Peter Lorre). Pepi has a job for Miller to do and when the man refuses, Pepi kills him brutally. This is the typical slimy performance that was Peter Lorre’s bread and butter and he is sufficiently menacing here. Later we will be introduced to his boss Hall Edding (Conrad Veidt), a man who played Nazi leaders perfectly in films like Casablanca, Nazi Agent and this one. His final role the following year would see him switch sides and aid in the fight against the third reich. 

While the suspense and intrigue is genuine, so is the humor and for the most part the two coexist. That’s not to say every comedic moment hits the mark. There is an ongoing joke about one of Gloves’s men always being kept from his girl, Annabelle, and how it’s breaking up their relationship. This was funny the first couple of times it comes up but by the time Annabelle shows up in person it is no longer funny and just plain annoying. Some of the plot points such as when Gloves takes the police to the Nazi headquarters midway through the film are obvious and lack any surprises. These little stumbles are completely redeemed late in the game when Gloves and one of his men, Sunshine (William Demarest), infiltrate the Nazi’s secret meeting, knocking out two real Nazi’s who just arrived from out of state. Unfortunate for Gloves, he is asked to speak to the group about the planned explosives for the battleship and must use his wits and a lot of double talk to try and bluff his way out of the situation. It is easily the funniest moment in the entire film. In the end, the police arrive and a brawl breaks out that could have been from one of the Three Stooges shorts complete with Phil Silvers doing a bit where he heils every man knocked his way and if they salute back he conks them on the head.

The final confrontation between Gloves and Edding is a tad anticlimactic but gets the job done. Everything is wrapped up with a neat bow and they live happily ever after. It’s the type of film that would seem a little too on the nose for any other type of film but works just fine here. The only sad note is the news that Leda’s father, who was being held in a concentration camp to force her to assist the Nazi’s, has died. This motivates her to speak up now that she has nothing left to lose. 

The tones are sometimes at odds with each other and can shift from laugh out loud to genuinely suspenseful. This mostly works but not always. To help smooth out the router passages, Bogart and his men lend a level of levity and, occasional earnestness to the proceedings. These are not star making roles but, especially Bogart, they are flashy roles that would help cement many of them as solid actors and performers. Bogart would move on to his biggest role yet later the same year as Rick Blaine in Casablanca along with co-stars Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, the former also starred with Bogart the previous year in The Maltese Falcon. This film has a lot going for it, only stumbling when the plot becomes to obvious. Still, it’s fun and a little frenetic, making it absolutely enjoyable to watch.