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Simply Perfect

best movie i've ever seen.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Some critics regard Vincent Sherman's All Through the Night (1942) as a spoof (indeed it is so described on the 10/10 Warner's DVD), but actually it could have been described as a rather uneasy mixture of comedy and espionage. Certainly, the opening scenes in which the director allows support comedians William Demarest, Phil Silvers and Jackie Gleason full rein (in fact, as Sherman himself admits, he was so overawed by them, he let them introduce material that wasn't even in the script) does not promise success. It is not until Peter Lorre makes his entrance that the mood of the film changes for the better from slapstick to noirish thriller. True, there are still some comic moments but they are underlined by the deadly serious business of staying alive. The film's atmosphere suddenly becomes appropriately dark. Conrad Veidt at his most suavely menacing and Judith Anderson in murderous mode help transform the film into a tense, slick suspenser. Kaaren Verne in what turned out to be her best role, is absolutely stunning, but, alas, her subsequent roles failed to recapture this success. In real life, she married Peter Lorre.

When I was 10 years old, I thought "All Through the Night" was a terrific movie. There was Humphrey Bogart as a tough-guy gambler socking it to the Nazis, taking on Conrad Veidt as a Prussian mastermind and Peter Lorre as a sloe-eyed killer. Looking at it now, "All Through the Night" seems obvious and dopey. Take a meeting of the fifth columnists somewhere in L.A. Bogart starts spouting double talk and the packed hall keeps sieg heiling as if he makes sense. Then there's the confusion over a woman Bogie suspects is a spy until he discovers that her father was gassed at Dachau. His reaction. "Dachau, what's Dachau?" Duh!!! William Demarest and Frank McHugh contribute streotyped characters and a young actor named Jackie C. Gleason (yep that Jackie Gleason, minus the C) has a small shot as an inveterate gambler. Why do I think that "All Through the Night" was among the films that made Bogie pleased to say farewell to Warner Brothers.

***SPOILERS*** Humphrey Bogart as big time gambler and cheesecake lover,that's the pastry not the sexy women kind, Gloves Donahue uncovers a Nazi spy ring ring in Manhattans Yorkville section and with the help of his somewhat shady or mobbed up friends goes to put it out of business. Bogie or Gloves first got an inkling of what's was happening when his good friend and bakery owner German/American Mr.Miller, Ludwig Stossel, was found dead in his bakery with a broken neck. Mr. Miller has been working with the Nazi ring only because he has family back in Nazi Germany who's lives were endangered if he did't. It's when Mr. Miller's Nazi contact Pepi, Peter Lorrie, wanted him to go a step farther, in killing US sailors, that he refused which cost him his life! Despite Gloves efforts to alert the police to what's going on he in fact becomes their #1 suspect, in Pepi planting one of Gloves' gloves at the murder scene, in Mr. Miller's murder!As things turn out it's nightclub singer Leda Hamilton, Kaaren Verne, who also works for the Nazi spy and sabotage ring who helps Gloves out in that she finds out that her German born father who was being head hostage by the Nazis in Germany's notorious Dachau concentration camp was murdered by them. As Gloves and his friend and fellow mobster Sunsine, William Dmarest, find out from the head of the spy ring himself Ebbing, Conred Veidt, the big plan is to knock out a US Navy battleship docked in Brooklyn's Gravesend Bay. And the plan to do it is by using a motorboat loaded with high explosives with Ebbing and his fellow Nazi Pepi smashing into it, kamikaze style, at full breakneck speed blasting the ship to kingdom come! With Gloves on his own and wanted by the police he has to rely on his fellow mobsters to get the job, in stopping the motorboat attack, done all by themselves. And with time running out it would take next to a miracle for that to happen. But with Gloves Leda and the boys going into action that miracle can very well be achieved!Released on December 2, 1941 just five days before the Japansese attack on Pearl Harbor and nine days after German Furher Adolph Hitler's Declaration of War against the US the movie "All Through the Night's" release couldn't have been more timely! Even though when it was released at a time when the US & Nazi German as well as Imperial Japan were technically still at peace with each other! Even more ironic was the planned attack by Nazi fanatic Ebbing on a US Navy battleship which was eerily reminiscent of the Al-Qeada attack on the US Navy warship USS Cole sixty years later on October 12, 2000 in the Bay of Yemen on the Red Sea. Did the Al-Qeada terrorist organization get their idea to do in the USS Cole by watching the film "All Through the Night" that may have inspire them to do it?

Broadway bookie Humphrey Bogart (as "Gloves" Donahue) is ticked when his favorite cheesecake, from "Miller's Home Bakery", isn't served at one of his favorite eateries. Investigating the matter leads the discerning taste-budded Mr. Bogart to discover his favorite baker has been shot dead by sneaky Peter Lorre (as Pepi). Now, Bogart is more than ticked. Hot on the trail, Bogart meets duplicitous songstress Kaaren Verne (as Leda Hamilton), who leads him to a New York City gang of Nazi sympathizers."All Through the Night" begins as a broad, Damon Runyon-stylized comedy. "Miller's" cheesecake is, of course, swiped from Mr. Runyon's "Mindy's" (by way of "Lindy's"). It's startling to see Bogart walk on-screen to join his henchmen - cantankerous William Demarest (as Sunshine) is bantering with jovial Jackie Gleason (as Starchy) as waiter Phil Silvers (as Louie) mediates. The soundtrack sometimes enters cartoon territory. Then, it gets deadly serious. The incongruence is amazing, the cast unique.***** All Through the Night (12/2/41) Vincent Sherman ~ Humphrey Bogart, Kaaren Verne, William Demarest, Peter Lorre