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Chicago Film Society Presents: Night World (1932) on 35MM
Hollywood’s pre-Code era is remembered for its salaciousness, but it should also be commended for its prolificacy: studios were turning out bread-and-butter entertainments at such a clip that a substantial backlog still remains ninety years on. A case in point: Night World, a bottle of forgotten bathtub hooch that was spat out by its contemporaries but has now improbably aged into a fine wine. Cramming enough plot and character for three movies into one that can barely manage to stay upright for a full hour, Night World is a panoramic exploration of impossibly cramped quarters, an exposé of a Prohibition-era nightclub called Happy’s and its soused denizens. That the proprietor, Happy MacDonald, is played by Boris Karloff should be your first hint that names are rarely indicative of demeanor or destiny. The human kaleidoscope never stops turning: Karloff’s wife is cheating on him and setting him up for a gangland ambush; Mae Clarke is a dancer forever fighting with her mother, Hedda Hopper; Lew Ayres is a wealthy scion drinking himself to death; Clarence Muse plays the doorman who needs to get away from the club to check in on his sick wife. You might be tempted to call Night World a poor man’s Grand Hotel — but Universal’s version tumbled into theaters three months before M-G-M’s starry pacesetter. And for a film cheap enough to have practically been shot on the installment plan, Night World somehow boasts a bona fide Busby Berkeley production number a year before the young choreographer shuffled off to Burbank to make 42nd Street. (KW)
58 min • Universal Pictures • 35mm from Universal
Preceded by: “Rolling Along” (Albert Ray, 1932) – 20 min – 35mm
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Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2072869-0
