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I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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.

Happy's Club, a non speakeasy nightclub in Manhattan, is home to many stories and characters. Owner Happy MacDonald is threatened by rival bootleggers and decides to settle matters with them himself. Happy's wife Jill is keeping on an affair with the nightclub's entertainment director Klauss. Dancer Ruth Taylor is falling for young Michael Rand, who's been drinking away at Happy's after the recent events of the murder trial concerning his mother shooting his father. All the events come together (sort of- see review) where people with grudges against each our cast come to Happy's for a showdown.The film has a great cast and almost all of them do a bang-up job, but the film falls flat because the various stories don't really gel together and a lot of characters have their roles wasted (Clarence Muse and George Raft especially). In a sense the only draw of the film is the Busby Berkeley choreographed dance sequence about 10 minutes in.Rating 4 out of 10.

Night World (1932) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Strange Pre-Code from Universal takes place at a nightclub during the Prohibition era where the women wear very little clothes and the alcohol is running free. Outside some Pre-Code dialogue and situations the story here is rather weak because it seems the director was only wanting to show the women and booze. The film runs a very fast 56-minutes but a few of the scenes go on a bit too long even with the short running time. Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff and George Raft star. Watch for the joke aimed at James Whale's Frankenstein.

Fun, saucy, fast-moving and short, Night World is a neat little movie from the early thirties, before Prohibition was repealed, when Hoover was still in the White House; and with a Depression still new there was yet a Gatsby mood in the cities. The credits of this movie are unusual. Busby Berkeley did the choreography. Alfred Newman composed what music there is. The cast is oddball for any sort of film, but especially peculiar for this kind: Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, Hedda Hopper, George Raft and Jack La Rue. Director Hobart Henley handles his material extremely well, and gives it pace and energy. There is joy, sadness, corruption, disillusionment and heartbreak in the movie, and the ending is bittersweet but not downbeat.