Night in New Orleans (1942) Poster

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7/10
Watchable Murder Mystery
gordonl567 September 2015
Warning: Spoilers
NIGHT IN NEW ORLEANS 1942

This Paramount Pictures low rent programmer stars, Preston Foster, Albert Dekker and Patricia Morrison.

Foster and Dekker are both Lieutenants in the New Orleans Police Department. They are both in competition for one opening as a Police Captain.

Foster is married to Patricia Morrison. Foster is out one fog filled night trying to retrieve some letters Morrison had written a former paramour. The letters could be taken wrong if they hit the papers etc. The problem for Foster is that he finds the man who has the letters, dead, with several large bullet holes in him. Foster rifles the man's desk and grabs up the letters, then beats the feet home.

Needless to say there are several witnesses who see him leave the house and street. When the body is found, Lt Dekker gets the call. He soon discovers that Foster was seen in the area at the time of death. Bingo, he has a suspect, Policeman or not.

The rest of the 75 minute runtime is spent chasing down the clues that pop up one after the other. First, Foster is the lead suspect, then, both the dead man's brothers top the list, then, it is the dead man's bodyguard followed by a singer at a hot New Orleans night spot. This one hops all over the place before disclosing the real killer in the last two minutes.

Also in the cast is Dooley Wilson as Foster's butler and driver. Dooley would later claim cinematic immortality as "Sam" the piano player in, CASABLANCA. Look close and you will see Dorothy Dandridge in a small un-billed part.

The film moves right along with veteran low budget helmsman, William Clemens, at the controls. Clemens directed several of the popular NANCY DREW mysteries as well as three or four of the FALCON series. Not a bad little whodunit type bit of entertainment.
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6/10
Routine comedy mystery
rhoda-913 February 2019
Lovely Patricia Morison had a minor and dreary career in the movies before she became known for her soprano voice and her starring role in the original production of Kiss Me, Kate. This film shows how sadly mistreated she was--her black hair is dyed blonde, and the hairstyle and makeup also make her look like Joan Blondell, the star of several comedy mysteries like this one. She was also told to act like Blondell, with lots of wide-eyed pouting and fuming, and the dialogue makes her out to be, as even her police lieutenant husband says, "a birdbrain."

Since the husband is the always likable Preston Foster, and since he does have to put up with a lot from this ninny, we can forgive him. But it seems a bit much for him to take her on a search of a suspect's apartment and say, "Help me look for clues" to someone who just swivels her head and stares blankly. The script is as low in consistency as it is in respect for women.

That said, the dialogue is often quite funny, and the story jogs on at a decent pace. The comedy mystery is a peculiar and, some feel, distasteful genre (what's funny about corpses and police brutality?). but if you're not bothered, you can count on being passably entertained.
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6/10
Night in New Orleans
coltras354 March 2023
Steve Abbott and Bill Richards are both lieutenants in the New Orleans police department, colleagues and rivals alike. Steve, seeking love letters his wife Ethel once wrote to a Phillip Wallace, finds the man's dead body and immediately becomes Bill's prime suspect. Both report to Dan Odell, their chief. Ethel, an amateur detective, investigates on her own while her husband's under suspicion.

A standard yet entertaining comedy thriller with good performances by Preston Foster and Patricia Morrison as his wife who is quite a humorous character. This mystery film is done mostly for laugh, the dialogue snappy and the pace is breezy - it's not earth shatteringly great but it's still fun.
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The usual stuff, nothing more
searchanddestroy-112 February 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Not uninteresting, but not fantastic either. I did not know that William Clemens made films for Paramount Pictures, only Warner and RKO. OK, it's a routine mystery, private eye and investigation yarn. Preston Foster is very cool in this lead character, but as I said just before, you have already seen this a million times before. Jonathan Latimer wrote some stories for Paramount and a couple of John Farrow's films: THE BIG CLOCK, if I am not wrong. And of course he also wrote this one. An acceptable time waster, rare and worth watching.

We may expect some surprise that never come. That could have been cool too, for the audience, not the lead character.

Good standard little crime movie typically from the early forties.
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