While on vacation in Palm Beach, a research analyst from New York City saves a drunk from drowning--in doing so, she ruins her new dress and is seen sneaking out of a millionaire's hotel room wearing only a towel. The rich guy, a publishing magnate (whom the girl works for!), never even sees her--he's dead in his bed. When his nephew (Dean Martin) takes over the magazine empire, he's made aware that his womanizing uncle was seen with a tootsie on the night of his demise who might be tempted to blackmail the company (how they come to that conclusion is anyone's guess). Anemic sex-and-big business comedy is a big step down from "The Apartment" just one year before. "Apartment" co-star Shirley MacLaine (who received an Oscar nom for her work in that film) is back doing the same kind of scatterbrained, breathlessly 'adorable' work she did in all her pictures leading up to "The Apartment". The comic situations are desperately juvenile, such as MacLaine's beau (Cliff Robertson, acting the stiff) coming across the mink coat Shirley acquired after her good deed and embarrassing her in front of his stuffy parents. The screenwriters (Edmund Beloin, Maurice Richlin and Sidney Sheldon, adapting Owen Elford's play) frantically iron and re-iron their story wrinkles, substituting wit with groaning one-liners. It takes one tipsy scene from MacLaine to get an honest laugh, the rest being ham-handed and overplayed. ** from ****

Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine are teamed in a charming romantic comedy reminiscent of the Day/Huson outings. Martin is the playboy heir to a family fortune, who owes his life to MacLaine, who saves him from drowning in a swimming pool. A series of coincidences make everyone believe the young beauty was "involved" with Martin's rich uncle, who mysteriously passed on in his hotel room. Who can blame anyone's wicked thoughts, when MacLaine apparently escaped the old millionaire's room wearing nothing but a bath towel.This is pure Hollywood fun, complete with that special dose of naughtiness, briefly popular during the early 60s, until that sort of comedy was again frowned upon as tasteless. Enjoy the two Rat-Packers (Martin and MacLaine) in a bit of lavish escapism from Paramount Studio's Golden Age!

I remember seeing All in a Night's Work when it first came out in 1961. It was at a drive-in movie with my cousins who I was visiting at the time. It was and still remains a very funny film with Dino and Shirley giving some great performances.If this had been made at Universal instead of Paramount All in a Night's Work would have been starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Dino steps into a Rock Hudson part as the wolfish heir to a publishing empire. And Shirley, though she invests the part with her own brand of kookiness, is really Doris the eternal virgin. After all she does go to Florida for the sunshine on her vacation.Shirley gets a bit more than she bargained for. After saving a lecherous old playboy from drowning, she has to fend off his advances in the best Doris Day manner. In doing so she stumbles into the room of her boss, the owner of the magazine she works for and Dean Martin's uncle, wearing nothing but a towel.A very officious house detective, Jack Weston, spots her in said towel as she's leaving the room. It turns out that her boss had passed away that night and Weston's beady little mind suspects scandal. The rest of the film is that proverbial comedy of errors.Though it's not heard in the film, Dean Martin did record a song All in a Night's Work for Capitol and he sold a few records of it back in the day. The song fits perfectly in his style, can't imagine anyone else doing it.Gale Gordon and Jerome Cowan play colleagues of Dean's uncle and Cliff Robertson plays Shirley's fiancé, a veterinarian. Dean has a fabulous scene in Robertson's office where on impulse he grabs a dog and takes the poor hound to inside so he can get a line on Robertson. He uses the fake name of Julius Hemmenschlager with Robertson. It's Dino's best scene in the film.And Shirley gets quite plastered while nightclubbing with Robertson and his visiting parents, the stuffy Mabel Albertson and the slightly pickled Charlie Ruggles. Quite a sight to see MacLaine and Ruggles singing the school song of the Kansas Institute for Vetrinary Medicine.One thing does puzzle me. After Weston removes the towel through the elevator door. Just how does a nude Shirley MacLaine get back to her room?

All in a nights work shows everything I love to watch in a movie. Its fun, sassy and has the great one liner, Oh Mr Ryder. Dean Martin and Shirley Maclaine have obvious chemistry in this flick and its just a classic example of how romance used to exist. Although it is a typical mistaken Identity plot for a film of its age it has more wit than others seen at that time. Dean Martin really shows in this film his sophistication as an actor and is at all times Mr Cool. Shirley Maclaine is an actress I have never really watched in the past but she sparkles in this. The ending would have to be my favourite scene, I love this movie and its a classic I can watch again and again.