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.

Even for the supercharged, ultra-patriotic atmosphere of WWII this film had to have been an embarrassment to all concerned. It's hard to believe Bogart was in it this far into his career. I'm not sure what it was supposed to be, a spy-caper, a spy-spoof, a mixture? Everyone comes off bad, especially the cops who in their utter incompetence actually help the spies. These last ones come off a bit better but one is left wondering how they managed to recruit such a sizable stable of agents. As for the good guys, Bogart's gang, they're not much better, relying on unfounded guesswork, Ma's hunches, and blind luck to thwart the bad guys. And speaking of Bogart, what exactly was he? He's described as a promoter but of what we're never told. He seems to gamble a lot and has a large retinue but what's his racket? And how come none of them were drafted? This one would be a total bust were it not for Jackie Gleason as one of Bogart's henchmen, Judith Anderson in a reliably evil role, Frank McHugh who's always a hoot, and the lovely Kaaren Verne who we don't see enough.

With it's combination of various genres (Runyonese gangsters,comedy,spy drama,mystery,thriller,Nazi villains,wartime propaganda),ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT could've been an unwieldy and confusing melange of styles;that it is not is a tribute to it's behind the scenes crew (splendidly led by Vincent Sherman) and wonderful cast,with arguably Hollywood's most imperishable star,Humphrey Bogart,at it's epicentre.Genial gangster Gloves Donahue (Bogart) probes into the killing of a friend, Miller (Ludwig Stossel),a baker whose cheesecake Gloves has been eating for years.His investigations lead him onto a nightclub singer (Kaaren Verne) who reveals that like Miller she's under the whim of an organisation of Nazi fifth columnists,led by the urbane but sinister Ebbing (Conrad Veidt).Gloves himself is under suspicion of murder,and exposing the Nazis involved intent on sabotage is the only way to prove his innocence.ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT is a scandalously underrated effort in the Humphrey Bogart catalogue.Perhaps the fact that the story involved is played for laughs rather than grim drama has led critics in the past to feel the tone was overly facetious and jokey,lacking the greater sophistication of the immortal CASABLANCA for example.It is very true on the last point,but overall as a piece of all-round entertainment,this film is very hard to beat.This is a quintessential Hollywood studio product of the early 1940's;Warner Bros'studio back-lots glistening with rain,fog and atmosphere,dark corners,warehouses,swanky nightclubs and docklands,breathlessly unpretentious direction by Vincent Sherman,a witty,exciting,fast-moving script that covers up the implausibilities of the plot,and a quite extraordinary cast of outstanding character actors,such as William Demarest,Peter Lorre,Judith Anderson,Edward Brophy,Barton MacLane,Jane Darwell,Phil Silvers,Jackie Gleason,James Burke and Wallace Ford.The very appealing ingredients above combined make this an irresistibly entertaining brew.There are several minor flaws;Frank McHugh is a little over-strident as a newly-attached bridegroom;Sam MacDaniel's brief role shows that Hollywood still had a long way to go before conquering it's crude Negro stereotyping,and Kaaren Verne is rather colourless and ineffectual as the main female lead.Bogart himself was not always completely assured when just playing straight comedy,yet he still handles it with his usual style and charisma,and works very well in tandem with the ever reliable Demarest and others with the Runyonese-style dialogue and situations.Bogie remember was still in the very early stages of his new-found stardom after years playing a variety of unpleasant hoodlums and gangsters,and he would reunite with Veidt and Lorre soon afterwards in perhaps the most beloved Hollywood production of them all,CASABLANCA.There is a rousing,exciting finale when various friends and cronies of Bogart battle it out with the Nazi villains in their secret headquarters,though this is slightly off-put by a dockland-based sequence involving Bogart and Veidt which goes somewhat over the top and is afflicted by unconvincing model work.Nevertheless,ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT is a hugely enjoyable and entertaining example of wartime Hollywood,when talent,professionalism and actors could paper over the cracks of a story which was often dubious and lacking in credibility.What a shame there are very few indeed in this day and age who can come nowhere near such admirable qualities.RATING:8 out of 10.

Humphrey Bogart tangles with treacherous Nazi spies in director Vincent Sherman's "All Through the Night," a witty World War II propaganda thriller that takes place before Uncle Sam entered the war against the Axis. "All Through the Night" boasts a terrific, top-notch supporting cast featuring Judith Anderson, Jane Darwell, Jackie C. Gleason, Phil Silvers, Peter Lorre, and William Demarest. Perennial Nazi impersonator but real-life German Jew Conrad Veidt of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" battles with Bogart in this serio-comic espionage melodrama. A year later Bogart and Veidt locked horns again in Michael Curtiz's Oscar-winning romance "Casablanca," and Veidt played more Nazis in MGM's "Nazi Agent" and "Above Suspicion" before he succumbed to a heart attack in 1943. Scenarist Leonard "Mystery Street" Spigelgass and Edwin "Larceny, Inc.," Gilbert have penned a top-flight, lightweight, rollicking, white-knuckler that puts our hero between a rock and a hard place. "All Through the Night" resembles classic Hitchcock thrillers like "The 39 Steps" and "North by Northwest." Our wrongly accused hero stays one step ahead of the police to exonerate himself of charges he murdered a nightclub owner. Anybody who loves off-beat Humphrey Bogart movies will enjoy this humorous hokum."All Through the Night" opens with a group of Runyonesque Broadway gamblers sitting around a table discussing the combustible European predicament. Mr. Alfred 'Gloves' Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) interrupts their heated conversation. One of Gloves' minions, Sunshine (William Demarest of "Escape from Fort Bravo"), explains what they've been doing with toy soldiers and tanks on the table in front of them, "Just showing how England can win the war." An amused Gloves chuckles, "I'll arrange a conference between you and Churchill." Sunshine points out, "Don't you think it's time you got your mind out of the sports section and on to the front page." Gloves dismisses Sunshine's suggestion, "That's Washington's racket, let them handle it." Gloves' problems start when Louie (Phil Silvers) runs out of Gloves' favorite cheese cake from Miller's Bakery. Gloves swears by Miller's cheesecake. When Louie tries to substitute an inferior brand, Gloves busts him in a heartbeat. Later, Gloves' mother 'Ma' Donahue (Jane Darwell of "The Grapes of Wrath")begins to worry him about Mr. Miller's disappearance. When Gloves stumbles onto Miller's corpse in the shop basement, things really begin to click. The NYPD is suspicious about Gloves from the start, but they don't arrest him until they find one of his gloves next to the body of a dead nightclub owner. Everything hinges on finding a young vocalist Miss Leda Hamilton (Kaaren Verne of "A Bullet for Joey") that was seen with Miller before he died. As it turns out, Franz Ebbing (Conrad Veidt) and his second-in-command Pepi (Peter Lorre of "M") are planning a 9/11 style terrorist attack not unlike a similar act of sabotage in Alfred Hitchcock's own "Saboteur" with Robert Cummings about Nazis blowing up a ship in New York harbor.Jane Darwell of "The Grapes of Wrath" is hilarious as Gloves' presumptuous mom who constantly interferes in her son's affairs. She gets Gloves into real trouble when she follows Miss Hamilton to the Duchess Club, night spot run by Marty Callahan (Barton MacLane of "High Sierra"),and Marty summons Gloves to get his mother off his hands. Lorre is particularly nasty as Ebbing's right-hand man. One of the greatest running gags in "All Through the Night" concerns Gloves' flustered chauffeur Barney (Frank McHugh of "Bullets or Ballots") who has just been married and cannot convince Gloves to let him have time enough to consummate his marriage. The Production Code Administration cautioned Warner Brothers about a lot of subversive dialogue with regard to Barney's situation. Apparently, some kind of deal was struck between Jack Warner and Joseph I. Breen over the salacious content of the dialogue. In the opening scene, for example, Sunshine argues that they can catch the Nazis with their Panzers down, a comment that drew the wrath of the Production Code, because of the implied sexuality in the remark. Nevertheless, the line made it into the film. Despite its racist content, there is a howler of a scene when Gloves' African-American valet Saratoga (Sam McDaniel of "Three Godfathers") delivers with supreme straight-faced solemnity to Miss Hamilton that "Things ain't as black as they look." Sherman keeps things moving in a dead heat as Gloves struggles to elude the police and get the goods on Ebbing and his dastardly bunch. Another hilarious scene occurs at an auction with some incredibly funny dialogue that sounds more like gibberish than actual words."All Through the Night" runs a close second to Raoul Walsh's Errol Flynn actioneer "Desperate Journey" as one of the best pre-World War II thrillers.