Night Court (1932) User Reviews

Disorder in the Court

[wes-connors · 7/10 · 24 March 2013]

After concealing his mistress in the office closet, corrupt New York "Night Court" Judge Walter Huston (as Andrew J. Moffett) answers a reporter's questions regarding an investigation led by fellow jurist Lewis Stone (as William "Will" Osgood). Denying all irregularities, Mr. Huston carries on his tough sentencing of prostitutes and petty thieves while letting hardened criminals off the hook. Later, Mr. Huston orders mistress Noel Francis (as Lillian "Lil" Baker) to lay low in a poor section of town, to avoid being questioned. She has some incriminating evidence in her purse, which is seen by pretty apartment neighbor Anita Page (as Mary)...

The young wife and mother decides to say noting about "Mrs. Moffett's" bank book, but Huston is taking no chances. He has Ms. Page railroaded. When her husband, handsome cab-driver Phillips Holmes (as Mike Thomas), shows up in court wondering what happened to his wife, the dirty judge takes the couple's baby away. The plot thickens with murder as Mr. Holmes endeavors to untangle the mess. This early "talkie" is nicely handled by all. An unusual pacing works to the film's advantage, making a series of shocking events engrossing. Holmes is an appealing "working class hero" and receives an outstanding cast of co-stars.

******* Night Court (4/23/32) W.S. Van Dyke ~ Phillips Holmes, Walter Huston, Anita Page, Noel Francis

"By the grace of God we'll turn this city into a clean city for clean Americans!"

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 27 April 2015]

A great little Pre-Coder with Walter Huston playing a slimeball crooked judge being investigated by a committee headed by honorable judge Lewis Stone. Huston is such a creep in this. He sends an innocent woman to jail on a trumped-up charge, has her husband beaten up, AND has their kid taken away from them. All because he wrongly believed the woman knew something about his crooked activities. What a bastard!

Walter Huston made a lot of interesting movies in the '30s and this is certainly one of them. He does a good job with an evil unconscionable character. Anita Page and Phillips Holmes are great as the young couple Huston sets out to destroy. Jean Hersholt has a small part as a friend of Holmes. This is a really good one for fans of the kind of gritty urban crime dramas that were made in the early '30s. Pretty compelling stuff.

A drama more thrilling than a thriller and more horrific than a horror film

[1930s_Time_Machine · 7/10 · 13 April 2023]

You will watch this with increasing horror as the lives of a poor, lovely couple is destroyed by the selfish actions of Walter Huston's corrupt judge. You can literally feel the ground being pulled away from beneath their feet as their world is inexplicably obliterated - they have no idea what is happening to them. You can't believe this is happening - it's terrible and it feels so real.

Walter Huston's character is one of the most despicable people you will ever have seen. He's not evil; he doesn't kill people, he doesn't even carry a gun. Neither is he a vampire or even a psychopath but he is more terrifying than any gangster or Universal monster or even the Devil from THE EXORCIST. He is terrifying because he is just so normal. He's nothing more than a selfish ordinary man who just happens to be in a position of power and is able to ruin people's lives. Why this film is so shocking and scary is because you can believe that what happens to these poor unfortunates who's lives he casually ruins, could happen to you. It's not an easy watch but you cannot look away.

Phillips Holmes who plays one of the simple, naïve victims was never the greatest actor and in this he certainly doesn't disprove that poor reputation. Similarly, Anita Page never really made it to the top rank of actresses and although she's OK in this, it is hardly an Oscar winning performance. It's possibly those unpolished performances however which adds to the realism which is so perfectly conveyed.

This film is so natural, believable and realistic but on paper it shouldn't be. If you think about it, the story has so many Grand Canyon sized holes in it that it should have no credibility whatsoever. You are however so completely pulled in to this shocking story and so completely engrossed when you're watching this, it's the most realistic thing you'll ever see! Walter Huston as usual delivers a totally mesmerising performance but what makes this picture so absolutely riveting besides the story is the energetic direction. Action man, Woody Van Dyke brilliantly builds the energy so that each scene seems to have twice as much tension and emotion as the previous one. Despite his reputation for speed, he certainly doesn't rush this and there is plenty of time for reflection to get to know the characters. It's a remarkably good film.

Another very Good Pre-Code by courtesy of TCM

[fsilva · 21 November 2005]

"Night Court" is a delightful programmer released by MGM and featuring Phillips Holmes, who apparently was somewhat popular during the early talkies Era, mainly as a Paramount contract player. This was the first time I saw him on screen in a full-fledged-starring role (not counting his brief appearance in the all-star "Dinner at Eight", which I almost did not notice) and I must say I was favorably impressed by his performance and screen personae. I had read tidbits about his personal life and his films, and had another idea about him; he's nothing of what I expected. In my opinion, at least in this film, he has a strong screen presence, good acting ability, even when performing in scenes with seasoned pros such as Walter Huston (one of the finest actors of the American Cinema). He really makes his character likable and believable.

Holmes impersonates a cab driver who is extremely happily married to Anita Page's character, who plays very well a naive housewife, completely in love with her husband and utterly devoted to their only child (a cute little baby), who's unaware of her unexpected & tangent involvement with a corrupt judge's (played perfectly by the great Walter Huston) shenanigans & shady doings, who uses his unscrupulous lover (Noel Francis) for his evil purposes.

I wonder why Mary Carlisle (playing Lewis Stone's (a good Judge who's investigating Huston's corrupt Court) daughter) was billed fourth or fifth in the cast and Noel Francis the last, if the latter has much more time on screen and a meatier role.

John Miljan plays a villainous lawyer, skillfully as usual.

An interesting, seldom seen and highly entertaining Pre-Code (Check the Huston's Court hearings).

I quite don't understand why Maltin gives this film only two stars in his Guide; it at least deserves three and a half!

Huston delivers outstanding portrait of corruption.

[st-shot · 6/10 · 16 July 2011]

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 .

Stinging Pre-Coder About Judicial Corruption Gut-Wrenching and Glum

[LeonLouisRicci · 7/10 · 4 May 2015]

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.

precode corruption, Huston style

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 14 April 2015]

Made 73 years ago, "Night Court" is a very good, gritty precode about corruption in high places. In this case, it's a judge, played by Walter Huston.

When a young woman, Mary (Anita Page) finds a bankbook left behind by a neighbor, she returns it, and finds herself sentenced to the work house for six months. The money belongs to Judge Moffett (Huston), who, to keep his activities quiet, hangs out in his girlfriend's apartment. The Judge believes that Mary looked at the bankbook and knows where he keeps his money. He sets her up and has her arrested as a prostitute. Her baby is put into care, leaving her poor cab-driver husband (Phillips Holmes) with nothing, and thanks to Moffett's girlfriend, he's even doubting his wife's innocence.

However, he knows in his heart that Mary isn't capable of such a thing and sets out to clear her.

The original was written by Mark Hellinger, a reporter, and producer of "Naked City" in 1948. The story is loosely based on a real-life character.

Though some of the acting is melodramatic, as this was the style of the day, it's still compelling. Walter Huston is terrific, mean as dirt, and Holmes and Page are very sympathetic. Anita Page, about 22 here, worked until she died in 2008! Philips Holmes died in 1942 in a plane crash. For some reason, he reminds me of Tony Goldwyn.

Three other cast members of note: Mary Carlisle (who as of this writing is still alive) as an honest judge's daughter, Lewis Stone as the honest judge, and Jean Hersholt as the building janitor.

Very good and absorbing, though it's stylistically of the time.

A real horror film

[westerfieldalfred · 9/10 · 21 March 2013]

In 1931 Frankenstein and Dracula were thrilling audiences. But neither is as scary as 1932's Night Court because the events depicted here could really happen to you and me. Philips Holmes and Anita Page do the best work of their careers, first as a loving married couple, and later as desperate persons undone by a corrupt system. Things go from bad to worse and still worse until it seems there is no hope for the couple - torn apart, imprisoned, assaulted. Walter Huston plays the villain wonderfully until his over-the-top mad scene. Holmes' acting at the climax must be seen to be believed - absolutely perfect. There are many instances of horror in films of the period but Night Court maintains this fear from the moment Page opens the envelope. This film is a class act, better than Public Enemy or Scarface in its depiction of corruption. It deserves to be better known.

Can you swim?

[AAdaSC · 7/10 · 17 November 2019]

Judge Walter Huston (Moffett) sits during the night court and emphasizes the moral need to obey the law when dealing with his cases. The trouble is that he himself is morally corrupt and is being investigated by fellow Judge Lewis Stone (Osgood). It's a matter of gathering evidence and waiting for the right moment for Stone. Meanwhile, Huston sets up housewife Anita Page (Mary) to be 'removed' for 6 months and sent to jail on prostitution charges. When her night-working cab-driver husband Phillips Holmes visits the night court with their baby to find out what has happened to his wife, Huston takes the baby away from him as well! Holmes now has nothing - he has lost both his wife and baby in one night. He broods for a while and then takes action. He is going to get to the bottom of things and the audience are all on his side as he goes about it.

The cast are good in this film which is based on some true gangster activity of the time. The only let-down is Anita Page in the second half of the film. Once she gets arrested she gets extremely annoying and so the film has to lose marks as we needlessly cut to her crying once again or calling out for her baby. Shut up!! Holmes is likable as the cab driver and gets a few good moments and some good dialogue whilst Huston is a good baddie. Noel Francis (Lil Baker) also plays a memorable part as Huston's 'bit on the side'. I've just watched her in "Manhattan Transfer" (1932) and she always seems to carry off her parts well. The set-up that convicts Page is memorable as are other scenes are we are drawn into devious plotlines. What a shame Page is so homely - I think she should have tried her luck "on the game". She would have been more likable. Maybe that's what she does next?

Anita Page Had the Makings of a Terrific Young Character Actress

[kidboots · 10/10 · 19 February 2014]

When Phillips Holmes was given a solid script ("The Criminal Code", "An American Tragedy" etc) he gave his all and produced inspired performances but when the film was mediocre he couldn't rise above it. After some solid performances for Paramount, MGM must have thought he fit their "handsome leading man" bill perfectly but after securing top billing for "Night Court" the studio quickly lost interest and in "Dinner at Eight"(1933) he had only a few lines as Madge Evan's fiancé. His co-star was Anita Page, an actress who was also getting the cold shoulder from MGM. She had sparkled in the silent "Our Dancing Daughters", critics saying she stole the film from Joan Crawford, but talkies revealed a voice that guaranteed she would never play any high society types. No matter, she gave a fantastic showing as the gangster's moll who responds to John Gilbert's decency in "Gentleman's Fate" and mopped the floor with the other female lead, insipid Leila Hyams. But the writing was on the wall and "Night Court" was one of her last films. A pity because she had the making of a terrific young character actress.

Based on a play by former press whizkid Mark Hellinger, Walter Huston was in his element amid the corruption and crime of civic government playing Judge Moffatt who is not averse to a bit of bribery and kickback. To the people that frequent his night court he is just but "one of them", but if anyone gets in his way he is ruthless. As Mike and Mary Thomas find out. Moffatt's mistress Lil is hidden away in a less up market part of the town but when neighbour Mary accidentally happens to see Moffatt's hefty bank balance, he puts in motion a series of circumstances which see Mary jailed for prostitution and vagrancy. Anita Page comes into her own, first as the happy, contented wife and mother, then as a frightened victim of a crime she is innocent of. Her scenes from the prison when she realizes that authorities have taken away her baby are heart rending. The story then focuses on husband Mike, a young cabbie trying to do his best for his wife and beloved child. Holmes has one of his better parts as his character goes through all the emotions, first amazement and disbelief, finding the courage to take on Moffatt and all his crooked cronies, then realizing that the ball is in his court when Moffatt is willing to do anything to get himself an alibi when righteous Judge Osgood (Lewis Stone) is found murdered.

Mary Carlisle, a 1932 Wampas Baby Star, was getting a career kick start - even though she had what really amounted to a bit part of only a few lines (as Osgood's daughter who comes up with the phrase "this silly old town"), her billing was prominent. Alas not so for luscious Noel Francis - down the bottom of the cast but a pivotal part of the plot, her Lil really struts her stuff and shows what a pre-code bad girl could really do without restrictions!!

early W Huston

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 6 April 2017]

Wow... all that going on. This couldn't have been made after the film code started being enforced. Judge tries to hide his girlfriend in another part of town so she can't testify against him. All hell breaks loose. Walter Huston is shady Judge Moffat, and thinks he has all the answers. Lewis Stone (Grand Hotel) is another judge trying to right the wrongs. Phillips Holmes and Anita Page get caught up in the illegal drama, as the neighbors next door, Mike and Mary. The plot kind of runs all over the place, but it's all done pretty well. This turns into a story of cleaning up the dirty judges running the court system. Good restoration job. Sound and picture quality are excellent. Huston had only been in Hollywood a couple years, but gives a fine performance. Directed by Woody van Dyke. He and Holmes both died quite young, van Dyke from suicide and Holmes in a plane crash. Anita Page had an interesting career... she had started in the silents, moved into the talkies, took a LONG break, and made a few more in the 2000s... in her 90s! Catch this one on Turner Classics -- an opportunity to see Huston near the beginning of his career.

Brutal, Shocking, an Trenchant 74 Years Later

[Handlinghandel · 9/10 · 11 January 2005]

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.)

If this was at Gettysburg I'd have thought you were Lincoln

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 23 March 2013]

***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!

MGM goes Warners, not altogether successfully

[marcslope · 5/10 · 28 April 2015]

Nicely pre-Code but rather hack-written MGM programmer, wherein nice blue-collar cabby Phillips Holmes and nice wifey Anita Page come under the heavy thumb of Judge Walter Huston, who's incredibly corrupt. Huston, with a dashing mustache, relishes his bad-guy histrionics, and it's fun to see Metro toiling in the lower-class provenance of Warners. But the social consciousness is awkward: Huston's so all-bad and enemy Lewis Stone so all-good that these good actors can't do much to make their roles interesting, while the always-too-pretty Holmes is given to some theatrical, unconvincing soliloquizing. We're also asked to sympathize with and root for him when he kidnaps Huston, gags him, ties him to a chair, and beats him up. Virtue does triumph; we know because there's a shot of a newspaper headline saying something like "Vice Banished Forever from City, D.A. Says." There's also an annoyingly cute baby. W.S. Van Dyke directs at about half the pace Mervyn LeRoy or Howard Hawks would have employed at Warners, and Page is given to scene after scene of screaming and wailing. It's fun as a time capsule, but other studios, notably Warners, were handling material like this with much more finesse.

Corruption exposed!

[rsyung · 23 April 2004]

Night Court was a slight, but interesting, entry in the pre-code genre of social commentary or expose´ films of the early 1930s…I would say the same group that included the seminal `Public Enemy'. What made this film a joy to watch was not the revelatory peek of criminal machinations pervading the lower levels of the NYC justice system, but the relationship between the cabbie and his wife, unfettered by Production Code standards in effect just a few years later. The scenes of Mike and Mary and their baby in the one bedroom flat they shared were charming, and Anita Page evoked a warmth and naturalism uncommon in those days when the talkie was only 3 years old. No wonder she's still working 70 years later! Walter Huston was downright despicable, and his speeches to his night court denizens about maintaining law and order were rather chilling considering the depth of his criminal manipulations of the justice system. And the setting up of Mary Thomas as a prostitute to discredit her was an eye-opener and quite frank. The film moved along at a good clip, facilitated in no small measure I'm sure by the breezy direction of `One-Take' Woody Van Dyke who had a reputation for bringing a film ahead of schedule and under budget. Perhaps it is for this reason that scenes play out naturalistically, with the actors given what appears to be some latitude with the dialogue and action in order to move things along. Some occasional hammy acting doesn't really detract from the pre-code forthrightness of the picture.

Gritty crime drama worth watching

[alfrneuman · 7/10 · 13 February 2022]

To protect himself, a crooked judge frames an innocent woman for prostitution, tries to send her husband out of the country and takes away their only child. You start to wonder how evil can this film get. It's surprising Walter Houston did not get an Academy Award nomination for his performance as the corrupt magistrate but apparently MGM did not push for it.

Night Court was an excellent movie until the last 10 minutes which seemed as though it had a different script writer tying the loose ends together. And that's too bad because this could have been a great film. Phillips Holmes and Anita Page are solid as the victimized couple. Ms Page could act and was certainly more attractive than many of MGM's leading ladies but never achieved full blown star status because she refused to ..ahem.. cooperate with the studio execs. Instead they ruined her career. Golden Age Hollywood at it's worst!

Night Court is worth watching and keeps the viewer interested. I rate it a 7.

Fantastic pre-Code crime drama

[HotToastyRag · 10/10 · 29 September 2018]

Just as the Walter Huston movie Law and Order had nothing to do with the successful television series, neither does 1932's Night Court. If you're looking for the inspiration for the comedic tv show, this isn't it. Go out and rent something funny, because this Night Court is extremely dramatic.

Remember what I always say about Walter Huston? He's wonderful as an honorable character, but he's spectacular when he lets his hair down. In Night Court, he plays a judge, but not a very honorable one. In the first scene, he's seen kissing Mary Carlisle in his office. When reporters knock on the door, he hides Mary in the closet and gives a soap-box type speech about morality in the courts to the reporters, only to have one of them accidentally open the closet on his way out. Mary has to think on her feet, and she pretends she's a sentenced man's sister, desperate to try and talk the judge out of his ruling to explain why she was hiding in the closet. It's a perfect opening scene. It shows how corrupt Walter is, how he and Mary can both spontaneously lie at the spur of the moment, and it sets the audience up for a grand dilemma. How far can Walter go to cover up his own corruption before the audience stops rooting for him?

That's a question everyone has to answer for herself, and it's an exhilarating ride as you struggle to figure it out. Joining the cast are Phillips Holmes, Anita Page, Lewis Stone, Rafaela Ottiano, and Jean Hersholt, and this fast-paced, exciting drama will remind you of everything the Hays Code prevented films from showing after 1934. This fantastic pre-Code flick is similar to L.A. Confidential, so buckle up and get ready for an emotional experience!

Follow my court orders and see "Night Court" from 1932!

[ronrobinson3 · 9/10 · 28 March 2024]

This is a very good film. I have always loved Walter Huston and he does a great job in this film too. You will love to hate his character. Don't think this is a comedy like the better known TV series by that name. This movie gets heavy and dark.

Huston is a corrupt judge sitting on the bench of the night court. He gives off the air of being just and kind, but he is being paid off by the mob to release gangsters. He is making lots of money which he hides and shares with his sleazy girl played by Mary Carlisle. He is thought to be a saint by the city while he grows rich off his corrupt use and perversion of justice.

Phillips Holmes and Anita Page play a sweet couple that just had a baby. They have the bad luck of becoming acquainted socially with Huston and Carlisle. When Page is suspected that she is starting to "get wise" to Huston's corruption, Mary Carlisle and Huston set up a frame job where Page is set up in a "compromising" position. She is arrested for prostitution and comes up in court against Huston. He sends her to six months of hard labor to get her out of the way. The sad part is that Page is innocent and really does not suspect Huston or Carlisle at all. Anita Page does a great job as she screams her innocence, cries out for them to get her husband, pleads to see her baby, and all the nightmarish emotions that would come from such a set up on an innocent sweet girl.

Phillips Holmes is perfect. He can't believe his wife would sleep with a man for money, even though they are having a hard time making ends meet. He runs to the court with his baby in his arms to save his wife. He is too late. She has been sent away screaming earlier that day. To make it worse, Huston orders the baby to be ripped out of his arms and placed in an orphanage "for the baby's best interest".

The film does a great job of showing the nightmare unfolding for first Anita Page and then it shifts to the nightmare unfolding for Phillips Holmes. He tries so hard to fight his disbelief in the overwhelming evidence that is wife solicited for sex. He wants to keep his faith in her but it is hard when everyone is telling him the opposite. He has a scene where he talks to himself in a mirror and lays out how he feels and fights with his trust in his wife and the horrible guilty facts of her "double life". Good stuff. Good scene. Good acting.

Does justice prevail? Does Anita Page get out of jail? Does Philips Holmes keep his sanity? Does the baby get returned? Does Huston get his comeuppance?

For all the above answers, you should see the film. It is worth it. It is classy and classic and you know I ONLY post movie reviews of movies you really should see. So follow my court orders and see "Night Court" from 1932!

A good cast can't make up for a contrived and ridiculous script

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 26 April 2007]

This film had a very poor script--filled with clichés, ridiculous story elements and was way too predictable to be enjoyed. While I am a huge fan of Hollywood films of the 1930s, I really hated this film because of the script and because the film had some excellent actors who were totally wasted. Walter Huston played a crooked judge--in a rather one-dimensional way. It was really hard to see the brilliance of this actor in this turgid film--even though in DODSWORTH and TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE he gave truly amazing performances. Lewis Stone, an excellent character actor, was also given a pretty thankless role. And the part of the film where the innocent woman is "railroaded" and sent to prison is just ridiculous and nonsensical. The bottom line is that it really looks like MGM put little, if any, effort in making this very standard and very silly film full of plot problems. Not everything old is good.

Pre-Code Classic about Corrupt New York City Officials

[gerrytwo · 16 September 1999]

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.

Disturbing Drama

[drednm · 20 December 2005]

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!

Unexpectedly harrowing

[mightymezzo · 8 May 2004]

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.

Entertaining Picture With A Nasty Plot

[GManfred · 12 July 2011]

Disregard the mundane title, this is a good movie. The website classifies its genre as a crime/ thriller picture, and it is exactly that. It stars Walter Huston, arguably America's best actor, as a terminally corrupt judge who is interested in self-aggrandizement and self-promotion. Rotten to the core, he victimizes a young couple with a baby he suspects knows something about his lurid after-hours affairs. Huston has never been better when at his worst and runs up against a good guy (in this case, a good judge), who, as they used to say in the 30's, wants to 'get the goods' on him. Good Guy Judge is played by Lewis Stone (Judge Hardy, of Andy Hardy fame).

Things get worse before they get better, and the scenes with Anita Page, as the young wife arrested on a phony charge, are hard to watch. Phillips Holmes plays her husband in one of the best roles of his short career (he was the cowardly weasel in "An American Tragedy").

The movie, made so long ago, is outdated particularly in the resolution of the cases that come before Judge Moffett. Defendants are held and tried at breakneck speed, often with out benefit of counsel. As we know, the wheels of justice grind very slowly nowadays. And everybody has at least one lawyer.

Do yourself a favor and get past the unimaginative title - this film is proof that you can't judge a book by its cover, or a movie by its title.

Watch it for Walter

[MikeMagi · 20 July 2011]

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.