***SPOILERS*** Telling his live in and single girlfriend Lil Baker, Noel Francis, to lay low in the seedy part of town until the heat, in him being investigated for legal and political corruption, blows off mobbed up Judge Moffet,Walter Huston,is shocked to find out that his secret bank account,that he deposits his pay off money into, was lost and recovered by Lil's next door neighbor Mary Thomas, Anita Page. Mary being the good and decent person that she is returns the bankbook to Lil but her boyfriend, "Da judge", feels she'll turn the information of his illegal payoff scheme over to the district attorney's office.Judge Moffet getting one of his stooges Ed, Warner Richmond, to pose as a John or man out on the town looking for action, if you know what I mean, to break into Mary's apartment and be caught with his pants down or completely off and have her arrested for both prostitution and shaking Ed down for more money, $20.00, then what she at first asked for. With her shyster lawyer Crawford, John Miljan, who's secretly working with Moffet telling a confused Mary to plead guilty and get off with just a $5.00 fine she instead has the book thrown at her by Judge Moffet and given a 90 day sentence in the city workhouse. What's even worse Mary has her baby taken away from her and her taxi driver husband Mike, Phillips Holmes, for safe keeping by the state!Not for a moment believing the charges against his wife Mary her husband Mike soon uncovers Judge Moffet's criminal activities and kidnaps him to get him t spill the beans on what he did to his wife and many others who's lives like Mary's that he destroyed. That's after Moffets' goons lead by his top bone and head cracker Gorgan, Tully Marhall, kidnapped Mike and brutally worked him over to keep him quite and in line!***SPOILERS*** It was in fact the murder of top crime investigator Judge Osgood, Lewis Stone, by one of Mofft's goons that saved the day for both Mike & Mary Thomas. That in having Judge Osgood secretly recording, with a hidden dicta-phone, Moffet threaten to murder him if he doesn't end his investigation of him as well as other corrupt state and NYC judges. Facing the very possibility of being sent to the Sing Sing electric chain for Osgood's murder, which in fact he was innocent of, or spending ten years behind bars for taking payoff money to fix sentences like the one he imposed against Mary Thomas, which Judge Moffet was guilty of, the now exposed Judge Moffet choose the later!

Before it implodes with incredulity in its last ten minutes Night Court is an audience enraging piece of filmmaking as corruption runs amok in the justice system. Up until the story goes from the crime to the ridiculous you may find your blood boiling at the blatant abuse of power by a cabal of judicial miscreants. In order to supplement a lavish life style and keep his amour in classy digs Judge Moffett (Walter Huston) dispenses injustice in his night court for a price. When a squeaky clean judge (Lewis Stone) initiates an investigation into his criminal practice Moffett goes into defensive mode by hiding the squeeze and his bankbook out in a marginal neighborhood. The woman befriends a neighbor who finds out too much as far as the judge is concerned so he has some charges trumped up to get the woman tossed in prison for six months as well as remove her child from the home. Her taxi driver husband vows to clear her name and expose Moffett so the judge sends some associates over to convince him to take a trip to South America.Night Court's nightmarish scenario is filled with Kafkaesque undertone as the execrable and efficient Moffett exploits the system with his well oiled machine of muscle and money to deal with problems. Huston gives an excellent turn as the venal and arrogant judge who twists the system to his advantage exuding a condescending superiority even as the noose tightens around his neck and his criminal empire is rounded up. Phillips Holmes as the taxi driver and Anita Page as his wife also give notable performances as victim's of Moffett's handiwork.Director Woody "One Take" VanDyke puts his appellation on display and to the picture's detriment as he attempts to tie everything together with a sloppy climax but not before he and Huston in pulpish fashion make a statement about a form of corruption that still flourishes eighty years later .

Odd what one sees in these old crime dramas. This one is pretty good, with star Walter Huston in particularly villianous form as a corrupt judge and the long- forgotten Phillips Holmes as the cab driver who brings the hammer of justice down on the jurist. But what sticks in my mind now is the harrowing situation of an innocent young family torn apart by the judge's efforts to elude a special prosecutor, resulting in mom Anita Page framed for prostitution and their baby wailing in an orphanage. Still watchable. We should all look this good at seventy-plus.

When MGM released "Night Court" in 1932, its story of crooked judges and a corrupt system of justice in New York City was pulled from the newspaper headlines of the previous year. When, in the movie, cabbie Mike Thomas's wife is set up, arrested and jailed for prostitution, that part of the story didn't surprise New Yorkers, who had read for months of the activities of Chico Accatuna (the spelling of his last name varies), nicknamed the "human spitoona." Just as in the movie, this unsavory character would set women up for an arrest by the vice squad. Once the woman lost her job and reputation as the result of the arrest, criminals such as Lucky Luciano would then force these women into prostitution.In this movie, Mary Thomas is sent to jail to discredit her, since she accidentally saw the bank book of the crooked Judge Moffett, played by Walter Huston. He had given it to his girlfriend when he told her to hide out while Lewis Stone's judicial commission was investigating Moffett and others for corruption. She moved in next door to the Thomases,in a rundown walk-up rowhouse, and managed to drop the bank book (which showed tens of thousands of dollars in the judge's secret account) into the crib of Mary's son when she dropped by.At one point, this picture is as grim as any you will see. Mary is in jail. Her little boy is in a city foster care facility, crying his heart out. Mike, trying to spring her, goes to a lawyer who is a crony of Judge Moffet and informs the judge of Mike's plans. Moffet, lying on a sofa, tells an associate to "get me bad boys, very bad" to take care of the troublemaker cabbie. These "bad boys" beat the cabbie to a pulp, then put him on a slow boat to South America.In a great scene, Mike later tells Moffett, now a prisoner in Mike's apartment, about all the questions Moffett's henchmen had asked him. Mike closes by saying they didn't him the most important question: "Could I swim?" Audiences in 1932 must have cheered when they heard that line, delivered just right by actor Phillips Holmes.Now, "Night Court" is like a time capsule, a reflection of a world long gone. Mark Hellinger, the co-writer of the play the movie is based on, was a reporter who had first hand knowledge of the real life events he borrowed for the story. The hero in this movie is a cabbie, not a cop, a district attorney or any other government official. In this movie, except for Lewis Stone's character, who is murdered, all the public officials you see are on the take. The movie makers didn't identify the cop who arrested Mary Thomas as a member of the police Vice Squad. If they had, that would have dated the movie. As a result of the tremendous scandal involving Chico Accatuna and the compulsory prostition racket, the NYPD Vice Squad had a new name, the Public Morals Squad. This scandal helped get La Guardia elected Mayor and is the basis for this pre-code crime classic from MGM.