Women in the Night (1948) User Reviews

Nazi and Japanese officers abuse women and try to get their hands on a secret weapon

[dbborroughs · 6/10 · 18 August 2007]

Pure exploitation film about Nazi's in China nominally to help the Japanese try to win the war and to abuse women. Actually the Nazi's in Asia have come up with a secret weapon that could have helped the Fatherland had they gotten it home before defeat, however Germany has fallen and the Japanese want it only the Germans don't want to give it up. Lurid exploitation film that is supposedly based on actual case files. Other than some note cards about nasty experiments I doubt very highly that any of what we see happened. More unbelievable spy drama mixed with and excuse to abuse women this is the precursor of the Nazi prison camp films of the early 1970's, though with out the nudity and truly graphic violence. I'm not sure what I think of the film. Taken for what it is its not a bad film, but I can't say its the sort of thing that I would willingly watch again since there is a rather mean spiritedness to it all. If you watch it you probably will walk away liking it, but you may hate yourself in the morning

"You are stamping on ze Fuehrer!"

[JoeytheBrit · 4/10 · 29 September 2008]

This Republican programmer is set in Shanghai during the days between the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender – although it was actually filmed in a Mexican hotel. Although the Nazis surrendered a few months before, a few of them are still marching around in full uniform, abducting virginal teenage girls on their way to church from the street and forcing them to serve as 'hostesses' at the German Officers Club. The Nazis are already plotting their return with a dastardly 'cosmic ray' which will definitely win them the third world war in ways the script neglects to explain. The Japs want the Nazis secret weapon but the Nazis don't want to give it to them and keep bombarding them with kidnapped women and alcohol in an attempt to make them forget all about it.

With a title like Women in the Night and a Poverty Row studio providing the finance it's hardly a surprise that this effort is pretty poor, even though it might have been camp fun in the hands of more capable filmmakers. This could almost have been a template for all those whip-wielding Nazi chick exploitation efforts of the 70s. The chief German officer – the one who isn't the spy with an undisguised American accent – has a thin scar on his left cheek and a monocle glued to his right eye socket. When an underling attempts to stamp out a flaming portrait of Hitler he is scolded by the officer with a fierce, 'you are stamping on ze Fuehrer!' He also has a couple of women working for him who are engaged in a lesbian relationship, although this being the 40s the fact is only hinted at in a couple of lines of dialogue.

Not What it First Appears

[choward465 · 6/10 · 25 February 2016]

As some of the other reviews point out, this is an exploitation flick of sorts, with captive women prisoners and stereotypical German and Japanese antagonists. The production values are generally low with some clunky direction, and the film was obviously filmed on a shoestring budget. But...

Reviews that want to write this off as a sleazy proto-70s women-in-bondage cheapie about a "cosmic death ray" miss, I think, several points. First, the film's apparent mulligan, the death ray, is not the point of the film. Is it real? Does it work? Do we ever get to see it? Maybe, maybe and no. It is a total red herring and, obviously intentionally, has virtually nothing to do with the plot.

Historical note: In the final days of the war, the German Armaments Minister Albert Speer actually named Robert Ley (the rather foolish head of the Nazi Labor Front) as "Commissioner for Death Rays." Ley took it seriously but it was a joke to Speer, who mentioned it in his book "Inside the Third Reich."

The negative reviews that disliked the set-up to this film, in which a group of attractive women are forced to be "charming" to their German and Japanese captors, miss the point. Any supposed salaciousness in the film's premise are outweighed by the film's concentration on showing the women as intelligent protagonists who work together, even if their motives are at cross-purposes, for reasons of survival and solidarity.

Overall the film does feel like it was written very much within the style of wartime propaganda films, even though it was released in 1948. All this said, the film is more layered and has more interesting characterization than some of the other reviews here might lead one to believe.

A quirky little Poverty Row diversion

[horn-5 · 1 September 2012]

"Women in the Night" begins by saying it is "based on case histories from the files of the United Nations Information Offices." It also promised to depict the heroism's and courage of the women of the countries occupied by the Nazis and Japanese during WW II. It takes place over a period of 36 hours, or 90 minutes that seems like 36 hours, in a German Officers' Club in Shanghai. It seems that these Nazis have developed a cosmic death ray that is 100 times more deadly than the Atomic bomb. But they evidently overlooked telling Hitler and the boys in Berlin about it, and Adolph and his henchmen are now history. But the Japanese want the secret to ensure they won't face the same fate as the Germans. The war in Europe is over but this group of Germans are not only hanging on in Shanghai, they have the funds to manage the upkeep of a club that would rival a Vegas night spot, or will in the future when Vegas begins to flower. Anyway, the Japanese guys want this secret real bad, and the Germans tell them to come on over to the Club and they will give it to them. But the German commandant of the Club has no intentions of demonstrating the "weapon" and has some distracting-diversion tactic planned for the Japanese honchos, and he has the club Maitre'd-slash-torture chamber guy bring in a group of captive women, and his instructions to them is to get out there and "entertain" the Japanese guys, and the way he says "entertain" it is real clear that he means total "entertainment". What his plans are when the Japanese recover from being "entertained" aren't real clear and aren't cleared up later either because one of his officers, (William Henry, the only male in the cast that isn't Asian or speaks with a German accent) is actually an American O.S.S. officer-slash-spy. And one of the "entertainers" is his wife (Tala Birell),a Shanghai version of Mata Hari. Then the plot gets kind of outlandish.

How Not to Start a Movie. Lesson One:

[junk-monkey · 1/10 · 8 June 2008]

This piece of cheapo, post war Nazi & 'Nip' bashing must hold some sort of record for the most on screen verbiage before the first spoken line of dialogue in motion picture history.

First we have a scrolling prologue (four screens full) - Followed by an establishing shot of the 'Bureau of Records', followed by a stock footage interior, and a zoom in on a drawer labelled "Case Histories Crimes Against Women", a tilt down to another drawer: "Confidential". A hand pulls open the drawer and starts to flip through the files giving us a chance to read their titles and some of the contents: (three shots showing eleven separate bits of paper to read). The last piece of paper is turned over to reveal a still photo of some women and a German soldier. Lap dissolve to stock footage of somewhere labelled: "Shanghai". Dissolve to yet another on-screen, full-screen message: "In the Final Days of the war...blah blah blah". Cut to another filing drawer, a hand pulls out yet another typewritten card to read: "Crimes against Hospital Nurses Location: Shanghai". Lap dissolve to a sign "University Hospital"... Dear god! I'm loosing the will to live here... Another dissolve to a sign saying "Nurses Quarters", another dissolve to a crucifix. The entire audience spells out 'I N R I' to themselves they are, by now, so used to reading anything that's on the screen.

In all it's four and a half minutes! before anyone says anything meaningful - and then it's to read out a list of the character's names as they step forward one by one. Heaven help us! Not more establishing!

There are seven writers credited with the script on this; I guess none of them had an eraser.

Women in the Night

[CinemaSerf · 4/10 · 5 January 2023]

Sadly, this is an overly convoluted tale that could have done rather more had William Rowland kept his cast focused. As it is, it's a fairly preposterous tale of some die-hard Nazis who may have a secret cosmic ray in the Oriental theatre of War. Determined to keep it from their Japanese allies who have just been victim to the Nagasaki A-bomb, much of the action takes place in a bordello, of sorts, where women have been drafted in from Shanghai University to "entertain" the Japanese officers and who are now bent on vengeance - or at least most of them are. Is there a traitor amongst them? Meantime, one of the German officers might be a spy too? There are far too many sub-plots, the writing is rambling and the performances are nothing much to write home about.

It's not too surprising that this is a relatively unknown film today.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 12 May 2011]

By today's standards, this film is an amazingly racist anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese film--the sort of jingoistic stuff they made during the war as propaganda. So, despite it having a release date of 1948, I strongly suspect it was actually made in 1945--just as the war ended. And, because it was no longer as timely, it was shelved and re-tooled--giving it a bizarro plot that was quite confusing.

The film begins with a rather intense and preachy intro about how the Nazis and Japanese brutalized women during the war (such as the Korean 'comfort women'). While this is quite true, the film creates a silly fictionalized piece that frankly was very stupid. A bunch of women (representing, naturally, the various allied countries--though what were they doing in China?!) were kidnapped by the Nazis after the European war ended (this was never addressed in the film--but it's set in August, 1945--and the Nazis surrendered in May, 1945!!). The second atomic bomb has been dropped on Nagasaki and it's only a couple days until the war is over--yet these Nazis want to somehow pimp out these women to the Japanese in order to help them create a NEW Nazi regime(???)! And to do this, the Germans have some secret for a new 'cosmic ray'!!! As for the Germans, they are hilarious. They are way over the top in their stereotypical behaviors and some of them look and sound about as German as the Frito Bandito! One of them, it just so happens, is really an agent for the Americans (really--who would have suspected this guy with a California accent?!) and one of these women turns out to be his old wife!!! What are the odds?! Not surprisingly, the ladies' accents also come and go--showing that these 'actresses' really needed a lot more coaching--or talent! The Japanese, though seemingly more civilized (and consistent with accents), down deep are all just a bunch of mad slobbering rapists----just like their German allies. But again, you must remind yourself that there WAS no Nazi Germany at this time and none of this made any sense!

The bottom line is that this is a stupid film thanks to a dreadful script--filled with about as much subtlety as a brick upside your skull! Had it come out during the war, at least it would have had some propaganda value. But, it is a terrible film--one that is so bad that you might enjoy it just for its comedy value! It reminds me of the expression "it's so bad that it's good"! If you like this sort of trash, also try "The First Yank in Tokyo"--a very lurid and silly film to say the least.

German officers in Shanghai try to survive the fall of Germany and Japan, but their abducted women complicate matters.

[clanciai · 7/10 · 2 January 2018]

Everything is lousy about this production except the story. The direction is despicable, the actors can't act, the result of the editing is a mutilation, and the happy ending is a joke. However, most of the ladies are quite good and convincing enough, and it's their film. It's their story this film is here to tell, and it's a great story involving many stories. Not only are several of these girls brave freedom fighters who don't hesitate to wage their lives when there is no other choice, but there are a number of great tragedies hinted by their stories, the most important of which is the mother who finds her daughter.

Forget about the Japanese and German officers, they are all caricatures, and you can see that the actors themselves don't believe in the almost ludicrous roles they are playing. This is a women's drama, and that's all that matters.

Also the music is very well made and gives at least a gilded frame to something that could have been an engaging masterpiece, if the direction and the male actors had been better.

The fact is, that there were rests of German officer cliques stranded in China (here Shanghai) and elsewhere after the surrender of Germany and before the Japanese final surrender who still believed in their absurd Reich, many escaped alive out of Germany and immediately started planning for the next Reich, - of course, they did not succeed, as they also fail in this film, but their plans and visions were enough alive to keep cliques like this active to the last.

Pity that such a good story should be made such a bad film of, but then at least you can take care of and mind what's memorable in it, and it is never wrong to point out the women's cause.

Awful

[boblipton · 2/10 · 9 June 2019]

It took me a while to figure out that this movie is set in Shanghai, some time during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The German military establishment (!) masquerading as a hospital is working on a "Cosmic Death Ray", which they are supposed to share with Japan, but do not wish to. They have also arrested half a dozen women of all nations, who are intended to act as dates for high-ranking officials.... when they are not killing German and Japanese officers as part of the Underground.

This mess was directed in Mexico by William Rowland, and it is a mess. Intended to leer at the Production Code, it has some pretty women dressed in elegant evening gowns, one pair of women who seem to be engaged in a Lesbian relationship, and several Chinese-American actors, like Richard Loo and Philip Ahn, who made a living during the War playing despicable Japanese officers, still playing those roles. The only explanation for this production is that it sat around for three years, was minimally revised, and produced in a hurry. That may be an explanation, but it's no excuse.

A Bit Too Corny

[Uriah43 · 4/10 · 18 October 2014]

Although Germany surrendered a few months earlier a group of Nazis have ensconced themselves in Shanghai and are working on a "cosmic ray gun" which is supposedly a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb that was just dropped on Nagasaki. At first they had planned to give the Japanese their documents but realizing that Japan could not hold out much longer they have decided to stall for time in order to eventually return to Germany with it and start World War III. However, needing to make sure their stall tactics work they seize several Caucasian women who attend Shanghai University and force them to work as "hostesses" for German and Japanese officers. Essentially then, this is a film that bears some resemblance to a "Women-in-Prison" (WIP) picture but being produced in 1948 it skillfully avoids some of the risqué scenes generally found in movies of this type--preferring a more subtle approach instead. Unfortunately, it pretends to be based on historical events and then completely turns history on its head. Likewise, having certain women representing a specific country was a bit too corny in my opinion. But then again, this movie was produced in 1948 and playing up to patriotism was typical for this time. In any case, other than "Li Leng" (Frances Chung) there weren't really any characters who seemed to stand out. In short, while as a WIP film it may have been ahead of its time, it still wasn't that solid and I rate it as slightly below average.

INTENDED AS EXPLOITATION FILM BUT CALL IT NAZI-NOIR

[cinemantrap · 8/10 · 24 October 2003]

Les Adams's lengthy summary of this production and its plot would suggest he has seen the film.I beg to differ on a few minor points: The hostesses are not all Anglos though there is one from Angleterre. The U.S.,Mexico,France,China and maybe Australia are also represented. The secret wife of William Henry is not Tala Birell, but Virginia Christine. Tala Birell ,the "Shanghai Mata Hari", received top-billing performing superior to the part. The production was filmed over a thirty day period at the Playa Ensenada Hotel in Mexico utilizing some very attractive interior decor. There are a few outdoor scene but they are minor. The plot is not so sordid but the lesbian relationship between the character's played by Jeans Brooks and Bernadene Hayes is clearly indicated. My 16mm print of this film,formerly owned by William K.Everson, is retitled CAPTURED.Film Classics sold off the rights to the film within two years. WOMEN IN THE NIGHT is a great favortte of Elliot Lavine, esteemed San Francisco programmer,formerly with the Roxie Cinema. He has show the film several times at the Roxie and at the Los Angeles Film School. Surviving cast member Iris Flores (Ride the Pink Horse), who played the Mexican hostess, attended the Los Angeles screening with her extended family several years ago, and I understand it was a warmly enjoyed event.

You've got to slow down! Remember you cracked up once before!

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 15 November 2013]

****SPOILERS*** Off the wall and unintentionally funny post WWII movie involving a number of Nazi higher ups who escaped from their homeland after it was defeated by the allied forces to Japan to start up a new world war for the fatherland, Nazi Germany, that in fact at the time August 1945 no longer existed! The film also has a women liberation story line or point of view in how women, of all races creeds and colors, was brutally mistreated by the Nazis and their Japanese allies in and out of captivity.

It seems that the escaped Nazis had developed a super cosmic ray gun 1,000 times more powerful then the atomic bomb that at the time was being dropped on Japanese cities Hiroshima & Nagasaki that they planned to use to defeat the allies in a new world war that they were planning to start. This at a time that their allies the Japanese ware days away from surrendering unconditionally to the allied forces! At the same time were shown in no uncertain terms that the treacherous Nazis were planning to double cross their allies the Japanese by keeping their super secret cosmic ray gun from them in order to win, the new world war that they plan to start, all by themselves and have no one else, like the Japanese,to share the glory and riches with them!

Mindless and totally idiotic movie that has the Nazis look far more insane then any Hollywood movie made about them, like "Hitler Dead or Alive", during the height of WWII.The Nazis as well as their Japanses "allies" are so oblivious of whats going on in the world in them losing the war and their nations being completely devastated by round the clock areal bombardments that its hard to take their actions, in them thinking that their winning the war, seriously even if you wanted to. There's of course the beautiful American nurse Claie Adams, Virginia Christine, who's one of the imprisoned women by the Nazis who's being forced to put out, if you know what I mean, to their and the Japanses military in the Shanghai officers club who was actually planted there as a spy as well as saboteur and assassin. That's to knock of top German and Japanese scientists who are involved in the cosmic ray gun project in preventing it from getting off the ground.

***SPOILERS*** And get ready for this in that it's Clair's husband who's working for US military intelligence who infiltrated the Nazi Japanese ring as German Major Von Archeim, William Henry,who despite his very prominent and obvious American accent the Nazis and Japanese have no idea of his true identity! There's also Chinese/American actor Richard Loo again playing a Japanese villain Col. Noyama who looks like,in knowing how ridicules the movie is, he's trying to keep a straight face in all the scenes he's in. And last but not least there's Chinese/American actor Benson Fong playing a real Chinses national delivery boy Chang who smuggles explosives into the Nazi officers club to be used to blow the place to bits by the time the the film is finally and mercifully put to an end. That's before it causes anybody still watching it ending up laughing themselves to death!

Utilizing their roles as girls of "entertainment" to bring down the enemy.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 4 May 2022]

This is an often unintentionally campy late War drama about women of various nationalities utilized by the Germans as entertainers for officers of both the German and Japanese disguised as a medical facility as bombs fall around them, threatening to destroy it. Tala Birell and Virginia Christine (best known as the hostess of the Folgers TV commercials for years) head an international cast of women who do what they can to survive and end up being a great assistance to the war effort as they go out of their way to destroy the enemy through spying or murder. Bernadene Hayes plays the slap happy German woman who keeps them in line, seemingly having a thing for one of the women (Jean Brooks) who has a severe haircut and looks suspiciously like Morticia Addams.

The film surrounds an evening of entertainment with German and Japanese officers expecting a good time from these girls, resulting in the assassination of one a nervous breakdown approaching another German officer who obviously is afraid of meeting his maker is he is killed. William Henry, Richard Loo, Philip Ang and Benson Fong are among the Bell cast, with one of the characters obviously a double agent, a common delivery boy more than he seems to be and the German and Japanese officers absolutely wretched in nature. An officer in the first scene gets it through a broken bottle, cowering ridiculously even before the woman approaches him. Certainly, this could have been a good War film, but a lot of the elements are extremely melodramatic and ultimately, it comes off more as an exploitation film than a serious War drama.

This was creepy on another level...

[juanmuscle · 10/10 · 2 April 2019]

I think it highlights crimes against all humanity by focusing on one central topic yet the horror lies within the tale in its seedy undercurrent that we are all animals, so whilst the man watches, we know this is wrong but there is always that looming animal side that pesters as desire... yes , we are human but the paradox is by placating our animal basic human instincts we clash against humanity trying to justify an inhumane decision by adjusting the moral compass here and now there, but in the end...?

But here I felt a choking oppression from every angle of this film. The bad guys, the good guys, war is just so consuming, it takes everything whilst leaving nothing, its as though the hitherto human characters forthwith lose all their humanity somewhere along the terrible journey that is war time.

I don't think the salt of the earth , people who want to farm, feed their families, write a poem, enjoy nature a bit can ever ever understand war and all its attendant manifold corroborating threads to any capacity. It is virtually impossible, I think artists have come close , but I don't think anyone has really touched or grasped the concept of the few at the top that benefit from its universal concomitant atrocities.