LeonLouisRicci
In the Pre-Code Era MGM at Least Tried Once in a While to be Socially Relevant and Concerned. In This One the Studio Ventured Into WB Territory with a Rather Nasty Story About a Corrupt Judicial System at the Bottom Level, the Night Court.A Good Cast Makes the Most of this Heavy Melodrama About a Married Couple with an Infant being Sucked Into This Cesspool of Corruption Only Because of Proximity. What Goes On Here is Not Pretty to Look At. Some Pre-Code Situations are Exploited to Explain the Frame-Up with Prostitution On Display Throughout This Rather Ugly Picture of Depression Era Folks Being Railroaded by the System and the Authorities. The Odds are Overwhelming and Only Determination and Some Luck Can Get Them Out of It.Aside from the Heavy Drinkers and Undraped Females the Film Contains Some Brutal Beatings and Truly Evil Characters. At One Point Judge Walter Huston Says..."Get me some Bad Boys, some Really Bad Boys!". Some of the Story is Gut-Wrenching when it Concerns the Happy Couple's Baby. The Movie is Not Easy Entertainment and Tries Mightily to Make a Statement About Some Social Concerns at the Time. The Ending May be a Tidy Wrap-Up but it is a Welcome Relief and Although Just a Fictional Placebo, that's About All a Movie Can Offer.
MikeMagi
Shot in 1932, "Night Court" sometimes comes off as a stereotypical mellerdrama of the period. But when Walter Huston is on screen, the movie zooms forward into another era of acting and storytelling. As a night court jurist on the make and the take, Huston's Judge Moffet is a fascinating portrait of malevolence and corruption. Anita Page as the sweet young housewife he frames as a prostitute and Phillips Holmes as her bewildered husband valiantly battle their way through a cornfield of hokey dialogue. Yet in Huston's scenes -- whether he's dispensing justice to assorted thieves, drunks and hookers or confronting Lewis Stone as an anti-crime campaigner -- the writing is sharp, surprisingly realistic. Or maybe, thanks to his performance, it just seems that way.
drednm
Night Court is a gritty drama about graft and corruption in the US courts. Very well acted by a good cast, there are a few too many convenient plot devices but on the whole this is a terrific film.Walter Huston stars as Judge Moffett, a rotten crooked judge who has a whole network of goons and thugs doing his dirty work. Lewis Stone is Judge Osgood, a crusader trying to pin Huston. Phillips Holmes and Anita Page play a sweet young couple caught up in the corruption. Noel Francis (excellent) plays Huston's cheap moll. Tully Marshall plays a goon. Mary Carlisle has a weird scene as Stone's daughter. John Miljan is a crooked lawyer. Eily Malyon plays a starving woman. Jean Hersholt is the tenement manager. Rafaella Ottiano plays a neighbor.Huston, Francis, Page, and Holmes are all really good. I've seen Noel Francis in a few other films and wonder why she was not bigger. She's always good. Page has one of her best dramatic roles in this film.Gritty story, good actors---worth a look!
David (Handlinghandel)
Walter Huston is as always excellent, here as a bad guy. He's a corrupt judge. He moves his girlfriend out of her tony digs and into a working class building. There, she lives next-door to a young cab driver, his wife, and infant. The wife happens to glance at a bankbook of the judge's that the baby took and next thing we know, the adoring young mother is set up on a charge of prostitution.Phillips Holmes, the cabdriver, at first is devastated hat the young girl he married has turned to the streets. Then he starts to realize that she was framed.He is tortured by hoods of the judge and other bad guys and then he gets the judge and tortures him till he tells the truth.This was very shocking for its time. So was "Scarface," made at around the same time. Everyone knows about "Scarface" but "Night Court" is undeservedly unknown. Both are precursors t the very best of film noir.(The only wrong note -- irrelevant to the plot but somewhat amusing -- is when the always fragile looking Holmes is given line describing himself as a big Palooka.)
AD
