Lady for a Night (1942)

Let's be realistic.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Unusual roles for John Wayne and Joan Blondell, unusual setting, and unusual drama for Republic, and they all add up to a wonderful movie that offers lots of fun for us, the audience.Blondell and Wayne make a strong pairing, something Hollywood should have considered before and again. Blondell was usually known for light, even fluffy characterizations but here she proves herself so much more: an actress. And Wayne, looking good in formal city-slicker attire, plays a character of politics and urban corruption (which, in fact, are so often the same thing) who still is essentially decent.It's a familiar story in some ways, but it's familiar because it seems to happen enough in, as we laughingly call it, real life.Wayne and Blondell should be enough for any movie, but they are backed up by a sterling, by an incredibly varied and tremendously talented cast, even including the amazing The Hall Johnson Choir, with some astonishing soloists.Stealing every scene she's in is Hattie Noel. She just dominates every shot, with her skill at delivering her lines and an overwhelming personality -- and some brilliant and funny dialogue.Despite his drunken character, Ray Middleton comes close to stealing his scenes, too. He endows his character with an undeniable and innate decency, despite the drunkenness.Middleton doesn't sing in "Lady for a Night" although he was a trained singer with a beautiful voice, beautiful even in speaking.Perhaps the climax is just what we expect, but it is also what we want. And the ending, the final scene, is also what we want.Wayne again proves he is an actor capable of many different roles, and Blondell again is so adorable, and so beautiful, their presence alone would make any movie worth watching just for them, but "Lady for a Night" is well-nigh perfect for its entire cast and its excellent script.I have no hesitation rating it a ten and recommending it highly.It's available at YouTube.

Jackson Morgan(John Wayne) was sure right. Jenny Blake(Joan Blondell): his partner in running the casino steamboat Memphis Belle, was crazy to encourage the fire she accidentally started on her boat("I'm burning my boats behind me" she remarked). We are spared the details of the conflagration, with many guests aboard. Would have been much more reasonable to have put out the fire and sell her half interest in the boat to Wayne, who didn't want to give it up. Very surprisingly, Wayne made no real attempt to put the fire out, just a complaint. Jenny was ecstatic that she had arm-twisted Alan Alderson into marrying her, so as to extinguish his unpayable gambling debts in return. Thus, she thought she had bought herself into the blueblood crowd around Memphis. But, as Wayne had warned her, it wasn't that simple. They would never fully accept her as one of them. But she believed she could accomplish anything she set her mind to. Joan and her maid, played by Hattie Noel, were certainly the most dynamic characters. Hattie showed her mettle by flattening the front door of the plantation manor where Jenny had moved, after being denied entry by the doorman Napoleon(true, unrealistic!). Joan was first billed over Wayne, and the most seen character. From 1939 through '42, when Wayne was paired with a well established lead actress, he was second billed. This happened 3 times with each of Clair Trevor, and Marlene Dietrich, and once with Joan Crawford, along with Joan, here. In this film, he's not very animated ,for the most part, mostly standing around talking. One exception is when he is told that the horse pulling the carriage Jenny is in is blind. He jumps in another carriage, pushes the driver out and speeds toward Jenny. Well, that horse sped down a twisty road, so it must have had some vision!Getting back to Hattie Noel, she wins my prize for the most charismatic actor. I had never seen her in a film before(and probably won't again), but she steals every scene she's in, and made me laugh various times. Her background was mostly in circuses, where she sang and danced, in vaudeville, and on the stage. She ran away at age 12 to join a carnival. She danced a bit here to the song played at Jenny's ball. Jenny brazenly thumbed her nose at the socially elite of Memphis at least 3 times in public, as well as on various private occasions. The first time is when she was elected queen of the Mardi Gras, and the elite clearly were shocked. She told them what she thought of them. The second is at her plantation ball, where she had invited a French dancing troupe to do the Can-Can. Of course, the guests where uniformly shocked, but Wayne voiced his approval by clapping his hands, followed by the others. The final time was during her trial for murdering her husband by poison. After her sentence, she gave a passionate speech that summed up her feelings toward the upper class. Another important player is Blanch Yurka, who played the evil Aunt Julia, who vehemently opposed the arrival of Jenny to the Alderson's, and, long ago had poisoned the fiancé of her sister: Aunt Katherine, who cowered in her shadow, probably afraid she would be poisoned if she got out of line. Katherine was the only member of the Alderson extended family who welcomed Jenny's arrival. One thing I don't understand: Why does Katherine keep a Civil War cavalry hat with a presumed bullet hole in it in her hope chest, if her fiancé was poisoned? There are several musical numbers, which add further variety to the drama and humor. On her casino boat, Joan leads a production centered on "Up in a Balloon", where she rises from the stage in a balloon basket at the end. Doloros Gray sings "Has Anybody Seen my Man", at The King's Club, which Wayne built after the Memphis Belle burned, and will eventually be co-owned by Jenny. . Then, a group of plantation African Americans sing and dance to "Ezekiel Saw De Wheel". Lastly, there's the French troupe dancing to Ta-ra-ra Boom-der-e, followed by the Can-Can.All in all, a very pleasant viewing experience, well done, with the reservation of some obviously implausible happenings. Presently available at Youtube

This movie was made in 1942. It is one of several movies that Joan Blondell, a very popular actress of the time, made in that year.I think when you look at a movie of this type, which was an average, run-of-the-mill movie of the time, what you get out of it is a snapshot of what viewers of the day expected to see in a movie. While this movie is a period piece (looks like it takes place in 1875-1885) it says much about 1942-- what people then would view as acceptable viewpoints for the script to put forth.I think there are two major themes in this movie that can give today's viewers an historical insight as they are entertained --the attitudes that were allowed to be expressed in that day and time about black Americans, and the Lost Cause mythology. While one character expresses the thought "Abraham Lincoln done emancipated and proclamated me", you can't tell it from this show. A black female leading character (a character actress with a lot of talent) is consistently spoken to with utter disregard for her feelings or human rights. She is threatened with banishment to Africa, is required to be seated in a segregated balcony with other black Americans, and is condescendingly referred to as "Auntie" by a white policeman, a sobriquet to which she responds in a small, frightened voice. An elderly black actor, portraying a coachman and major domo combination, epitomizes the myth of the faithful black retainer, happy to be subservient and defined by white social mores, long after Emancipation. Black residents of the Alderson Plantation are portrayed as lazy do-nothings. This group of people, in the party scene, are forced to enact the sham of being happy, joyful folk singing spirituals and swilling corn liquor on the porches of their shacks. The black actors in this movie mug, roll their eyes, and in general follow the degrading norms set for blacks in the entertainment world of 1942, which was dictated by black-face comedy-- an odious farcial comedy common in the south, which was acted out by white men.An arresting black character in this movie is Joe, the Conjure man. Joe is an emaciated elderly black soothsayer, who seems frail, yet filled with a power not of his own making, who colors each scene, in which he sings his discordant rhymes, with foreboding. The belief in conjuration, which might be simply defined as the practice of gaining ascendancy over one's adversaries or those one wishes to sway through tricks or spells placed upon them, was brought to American shores from Afica. American authors James Chestnutt and Zora Neale Hurston deal with conjure themes in some of their stories.The Lost Cause myth forms the framework upon which this story is arranged. The movie Gone with the Wind was released 6 years prior to Lady for a Night. The plantation in ruins, with a formerly noble family now fallen on hard times, eking out lives of genteel poverty due to their Confederate sympathies within its crumbling walls, is a scene familiar to anyone who has viewed Gone With the Wind. The Shadows, the name of the Alderson's ancestral home, is about to fall under the auctioneer's hammer for back taxes, another steal from GWTW. That the South's defeat was the nobler cause was a theme that entered American thought and literature in the early 20th century, as Civil War veterans began to pass away in large numbers, and as their deeds became the stuff of legend. It is interesting to note that this movie was for general release to American audiences, so even the descendants of the soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic were acquiescent to this view of the South.I always enjoy scenes reminiscent of vaudeville in movies of the 1930's and 1940's. The scenes set in Jenny Blake's gambling barge (these probably did exist, I haven't researched it) would be familiar to those who had attended vaudeville shows-- joke telling, elaborate musical numbers, dancing girls, and barbershop style male singing.The costumes in this movie are absolutely first rate, and as a seamstress, I enjoy them each time I watch this movie. Dresses of the late 19th century (as indeed, those of the 1930's) frequently had color combinations, styles, and trimmings that today would seem very garish. Even though the movie is in black and white, the costumes give off an aura as though in color. Whoever designed the costumes, particularly those of Jenny Blake, had an eye for period detail, and access to superb seamstresses. The small bustles are correctly made, the elegant trains drape and move perfectly, and the fit is sublime. All the costumes have been exquisitely fitted to enhance the character-- Aunt Julia, the sinister character of the story, has a perfectly devilish black costume. Jenny Blake's costumes had to hold up to a great deal of active movement and yet they always appear graceful and feminine.I find it interesting that John Wayne's character-- a behind the scenes political wheeler/dealer, manipulated the affairs of his little empire from his position as the owner of a gambling house. In "The Glass Key", a short story by Dashiell Hammet written in the 1920's, the political power behind the throne wheeler/dealer wields his influence from his gambling house/speakeasy. This must be historical.Well, this has gotten long. I wanted to let other people know why I like this movie. We can get glimpses of what the people of yesterday were like-- what they approved of, how they related to other people, what made them laugh at the theater, through watching old movies.

First off, anyone who watches this film because it's a John Wayne film (like me) may be disappointed because he is really a supporting actor. This is because he'd only been a regular starring actor in small-budget B-Westerns and in larger budget films he was mostly in secondary roles until the mid-to-late 1940s. Second, because the Wayne screen persona was not yet solidified, lovers of the Duke might also be shocked to see that for most of the film he plays a love-sick man who loses his woman to another. Had the later Wayne been in such a situation, he no doubt would have slugged the other suitor and drug off the woman for some lovin'--John Wayne style!! The real star of this film is Joan Blondell. Unlike Wayne, her star was starting to fall, as her prime as a leading lady was definitely the 1930s. Here she is a bit older and heavier, but this is also perfect for her role as a casino owner and singer.Blondell's ambition is to leave the casino life to Wayne and marry a society man in order to ensure herself a play in polite society. Unfortunately, she's seen as a woman of low virtue and the only man she can find to marry is a drunk from a previously wealthy and well-heeled family.Her welcome into the new family was not surprisingly rocky, as one of her new sister-in-laws was just plain evil. The longer the film progresses, the more evil and juicy this role becomes--making this a pretty exciting film and characterization. Ultimately, the plot takes a very dramatic twist near the end until it is all wrapped up nicely in the end.The only serious negative about the film is that the plantation she moves to in Reconstruction-era Memphis is ridiculous and full of racist stereotypes. No, the Blacks do not eat watermelon or act as bad as Stepin Fetchit, but they play out an even more insidious role--happy Blacks who are content with the good treatment by their White "betters". This over-idealistic view of the South is insulting and may raise a few eyebrows. Try to look past this to see that you still have the basis of a very good film.