All Through The Night (1941) Pits Bad Men Against Badder Men
Gotham's German section was a hotbed of Bundist spies, says Warners in this comic-flavored thriller that opened days ahead of
Be assured that many saw tough guys in movies as examples to follow. The government noticed and so used Hollywood to gird a country’s loins for what they knew would be a long slog. Would the war have been winnable without movies? You can’t help wondering. What would have become of All Through The Night and others if Roosevelt had declared definitely that we would not fight, and woe to those who'd incite otherwise? As things worked out, All Through The Night was a perfect warm-up for combat to come, but you have to wonder if Strand patronage wasn't tempted to head vigilante-style for nearby Yorkville to clean out perceived Nazi nests. Maybe apprehension of such an outcome made Warners salt All Through The Night with good and loyal Germans, sweet old ladies that have cheesecake waiting for Bogart as likeable, patriotic, sort-of outlaw “Gloves” Donahue, who realizes there is espionage afoot just cause the cake one day tastes funny. That is delight of All Through The Night, which like similar Lucky Jordan with Alan Ladd, gets laughter out of crisis we were head-longing toward.
Gloves is a crook we’d like having in the neighborhood to, like Popeye, protect the weakerest and stomp out Axis ant hills. Worst of these, Conrad Veidt, Martin Kosleck, Judith Anderson, are off recent boats from Deutch harbors, good argument against letting any of more of same emigrate here, at least before order is restored. Gloves’ is a free-lance force --- were there even police on duty here? --- if there were, Gloves never needed them. Nazi plot is to blow up Brooklyn’s harbor. Movie Huns lit fuses all over Gotham, part-time commandos like Bogie/Bogey tireless at snuffing them out. Recall Norman Lloyd as the saboteur who smirks when he rides by a disabled ship in Hitchcock’s same season thriller? Every untoward thing that happened in New York was chalked up to points scored by our enemies. I might have gotten suspicious in 1942 if a Coke machine didn’t work.
Humphrey Bogart was lately from The Maltese Falconand perception of him was changing, not only among a public, but employers. You could let Bogart live through an end title and even have the girl, these denied him in most work since The Petrified Forest and a long six years in which to repeat himself. The Maltese Falcon was also birth to a stock company that would orbit around Bogart, by turns menacing or assisting him. These in support were vital to the Bogart enterprise, for where would so many of his be without Lorre, Greenstreet, Elisha Cook, then later Veidt, Helmut Dantine, a first team in again for Casablanca, Passage To Marseille? They were essential atmosphere, the threats, always a colorful background, and essential. Any Bogart could boast of an “international” cast, and formula for his bled into vehicles for others ---The Mask Of Dimitrios, The Conspirators --- Greenstreet/Lorre even spun off into a series of their own. The war made all these ventures believable, gave us a sense of what might be happening in Euro hotspots we’d not visit except in newsreels. Fan press told us of lately arrivals to Hollywood who’d left family behind that may still be imperiled, so their investment in the fight was total. It had to be Bogie’s idea to use Peter Lorre late as Beat The Devil, or John Huston suggested it and Bogart said yes, by all means (he and Lorre were close friends).
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