All in a Night's Work (1961) User Reviews

Typical 60's rom-com, only made distinguishable by a good cast

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 15 June 2020]

.Dean Martin really goes out on a limb (eye roll) and portrays a playboy named Tony Ryder..am I crazy or are all 60's comedy playboy leads given names like that? Or maybe Chad Stone? Anyway, Martin is the only relative of a wealthy publishing czar, so when his rich uncle dies in a Florida hotel he inherits the mega-million dollar business. There's just one problem: hotel detective Jack Weston tells him that he saw a woman in a towel running from uncle's room..and she dropped a unique earring with a Chinese symbol on her way out.

The typical board--all old white guys who only want to keep their cu$hy jobs, are convinced the empire of 'family friendly' magazines would be hurt if such a scandal was uncovered, so they hire Weston to find the woman and offer her a nice sum for a nice NDA. It turns out it's no coincidence that Shirley MacLaine (a researcher at the company) was in Florida too..in that hotel..and yes, in uncle's room. MacLaine ended up in there while escaping the advances of another old wealthy fellow after she saved him from drowning, but has no idea she's the elusive mystery woman. When she sobs loudly at the funeral while wearing the same suspect earrings, the board and Martin are convinced everything she does and says is to extract hush money from them..while she remains clueless to their attention.

Added to the mix are her conservative veterinarian fiancé, Cliff Robertson, and his judgmental mother Mabel Anderson and dad Charles Ruggles. One of the better scenes is watching Ruggles and MacLaine get tipsy at a restaurant, singing and dancing..much to the chagrin of mother and son. If you don't know how the movie is going to end, you haven't seen enough 60's rom-coms. It's the formula of mistaken identity/misunderstandings, but even with a good cast, this one falls below the Doris/Rock offerings in the genre. A nice little diversion, but nothing special

A Memorable Vacation

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 16 August 2006]

I remember seeing All in a Night's Work when it first came out in 1961. It was at a drive-in movie with my cousins who I was visiting at the time. It was and still remains a very funny film with Dino and Shirley giving some great performances.

If this had been made at Universal instead of Paramount All in a Night's Work would have been starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Dino steps into a Rock Hudson part as the wolfish heir to a publishing empire. And Shirley, though she invests the part with her own brand of kookiness, is really Doris the eternal virgin. After all she does go to Florida for the sunshine on her vacation.

Shirley gets a bit more than she bargained for. After saving a lecherous old playboy from drowning, she has to fend off his advances in the best Doris Day manner. In doing so she stumbles into the room of her boss, the owner of the magazine she works for and Dean Martin's uncle, wearing nothing but a towel.

A very officious house detective, Jack Weston, spots her in said towel as she's leaving the room. It turns out that her boss had passed away that night and Weston's beady little mind suspects scandal. The rest of the film is that proverbial comedy of errors.

Though it's not heard in the film, Dean Martin did record a song All in a Night's Work for Capitol and he sold a few records of it back in the day. The song fits perfectly in his style, can't imagine anyone else doing it.

Gale Gordon and Jerome Cowan play colleagues of Dean's uncle and Cliff Robertson plays Shirley's fiancé, a veterinarian. Dean has a fabulous scene in Robertson's office where on impulse he grabs a dog and takes the poor hound to inside so he can get a line on Robertson. He uses the fake name of Julius Hemmenschlager with Robertson. It's Dino's best scene in the film.

And Shirley gets quite plastered while nightclubbing with Robertson and his visiting parents, the stuffy Mabel Albertson and the slightly pickled Charlie Ruggles. Quite a sight to see MacLaine and Ruggles singing the school song of the Kansas Institute for Vetrinary Medicine.

One thing does puzzle me. After Weston removes the towel through the elevator door. Just how does a nude Shirley MacLaine get back to her room?

Meeting Adjourned

[richardchatten · 7/10 · 5 January 2022]

Shirley MacLaine was at her most fresh and unaffected when she went straight from 'The Apartment' to this breezily amoral piece of fluff (set in New York but never actually leaving the studio) which features familiar faces old and new (Charles Ruggles plays Cliff Robertson's father, for example), and reunites her with her fellow Rat Packer and co-star from 'Some Came Running' Dean Martin (there's even a joke about Frank Sinatra); in which she's seen sprinting from a hotel bedroom wearing only a turkish towl for the most innocent but unlikely of reasons.

The image and likeness of Charles Evans as Martin's uncle the late Colonel Ryder - author of the immortal lines "Love is like a wild volcano, seething with dark desire" - dominates the entire film but he's as usual uncredited (although since he begins the film as a corpse he admittedly doesn't have a speaking part).

(At the film's conclusion yet again a bugging device produced clearer sound over sixty years ago than 21st century technology would be capable of today.)

40 years and still worth seeing.

[Emmjewels · 3 January 2003]

One of the funniest (my opinion only) Dean Martin and Shirley Maclaine movies I've ever seen. I never miss it, when it's shown on cable t.v. Can't understand why after so many years it is "not" yet available on VHS and DVD? I'm still waiting!!! Will definitely become part of my video "library."

A bit short of really funny bits.

[plan99 · 6/10 · 27 May 2022]

No where near as funny as I was expecting but it was maybe intended as being a "sophisticated comedy" at the time it was made. An amusing plot which the script failed to make the best of with the performances of the two leading actors being a bit lacklustre. Still worth a watch however.

Mink and misunderstandings...

[moonspinner55 · 4/10 · 14 August 2017]

While on vacation in Palm Beach, a research analyst from New York City saves a drunk from drowning--in doing so, she ruins her new dress and is seen sneaking out of a millionaire's hotel room wearing only a towel. The rich guy, a publishing magnate (whom the girl works for!), never even sees her--he's dead in his bed. When his nephew (Dean Martin) takes over the magazine empire, he's made aware that his womanizing uncle was seen with a tootsie on the night of his demise who might be tempted to blackmail the company (how they come to that conclusion is anyone's guess). Anemic sex-and-big business comedy is a big step down from "The Apartment" just one year before. "Apartment" co-star Shirley MacLaine (who received an Oscar nom for her work in that film) is back doing the same kind of scatterbrained, breathlessly 'adorable' work she did in all her pictures leading up to "The Apartment". The comic situations are desperately juvenile, such as MacLaine's beau (Cliff Robertson, acting the stiff) coming across the mink coat Shirley acquired after her good deed and embarrassing her in front of his stuffy parents. The screenwriters (Edmund Beloin, Maurice Richlin and Sidney Sheldon, adapting Owen Elford's play) frantically iron and re-iron their story wrinkles, substituting wit with groaning one-liners. It takes one tipsy scene from MacLaine to get an honest laugh, the rest being ham-handed and overplayed. ** from ****

Oh dear, looks like I'm the first negative user comment!

[hitchcockthelegend · 4/10 · 1 November 2008]

The film is OK because it has two leads with great chemistry, the Technicolor is delightful and ultimately it's harmless fun to view on a dark rainy night if you are stuck for something to watch. But really the picture doesn't add up to anything outside of a time filler. Based around the Owen Elford play, it has a couple of decent sequences; witness Dean Martin at the vets and Shirley MacLaine trying to keep her modesty as she escapes from a hotel room, but the sense of cramming gags in for gags sake hinders the flow of the picture.

Both Dean Martin & Shirley MacLaine are fine here, both handsome in equal measure, while Cliff Robertson stands out a mile from the rest of the supporting cast, yet in truth, as Rom-Coms from the 60s go, this is way down on the list of must sees for prospective watchers of the genre persuasion. 4/10

Charming "Rat-Pack" Comedy

[mdm-11 · 8/10 · 6 November 2006]

Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine are teamed in a charming romantic comedy reminiscent of the Day/Huson outings. Martin is the playboy heir to a family fortune, who owes his life to MacLaine, who saves him from drowning in a swimming pool. A series of coincidences make everyone believe the young beauty was "involved" with Martin's rich uncle, who mysteriously passed on in his hotel room. Who can blame anyone's wicked thoughts, when MacLaine apparently escaped the old millionaire's room wearing nothing but a bath towel.

This is pure Hollywood fun, complete with that special dose of naughtiness, briefly popular during the early 60s, until that sort of comedy was again frowned upon as tasteless. Enjoy the two Rat-Packers (Martin and MacLaine) in a bit of lavish escapism from Paramount Studio's Golden Age!

So that's what it takes to get a free fur.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 15 April 2021]

It's misunderstanding after misunderstanding and presumed blackmail, all over a young woman who saved a man's life who presumably ended up dying afterwards anyway. Shirley MacLaine is in another corporate setting as a working girl who finds herself at the mercy of the executive suite, and while this is different than "The Apartment", she its still the same type of quirky girl that she was there. It's a wacky, confusing script that leaves out a lot of detail until the end, and what you end up with is a fun romp that is just simply there to enjoy for the laughs, the glorious Technicolor and some fabulous fashions with a cast of veterans from movies, stage and TV who are always a joy to watch.

Playboy Dean Martin has been chosen to take over chairman of the board of his late uncle's company, and they are dealing with trying to find out who the young woman was who was seen running out of his hotel room. As it turns out, Shirley MacLaine, a member of the research team, was the girl, and she is perplexed by the gift of a fur by a man whom we later learn is not even involved in anything other than drunkenly ogling her, before she pulled him out of a pool and later after she took him to his hotel room.

She is engaged to pet psychiatrist Cliff Robertson, and he has enough problems with his clients and his domineering mother, Mabel Albertson and fun-loving henpecked father Charlie Ruggles (identical to his grandfather from "The Parent Trap"), while MacLaine is dealing with all sorts of suspicions coming out of her firm.

The confusion gets greater when she goes out with Robertson and his parents, and finds that the company is following her around, giving her cart blanc everywhere she goes hoping she'll drop the blackmail. It's soon obvious that she's falling for Martin while the Ralph Bellamy like Robertson becomes more suspicious about his fiance's actions and if they are actually compatible.

This is the only film that I recall seeing Norma Crane of "Fiddler on the Roof" in, but in addition to Albertson, TV audiences will also recognize Richard Deacon, Gale Gordon and Mary Treen among others. This isn't a bad film, just hectic and at times truly ridiculous, but it's one of those 60's films that is so wonderful and it's absurdity that you just can't help but enjoy it. MacLaine and Martin do have terrific chemistry which helps as well. And it's all in 90 minutes which makes it all the more easy to enjoy.

'Oh Mr Ryder!'

[DepartmentStoreLover · 2 February 2004]

This is one of the funniest films ever made (in my opinion). To not give away too much for those who have not seen it, this mistaken identity farce has Dean Martin, various character actors, and especially, Shirley MacLaine, in fine form. It is one of those rare films that one can watch time after time, and never get bored with. And don't forget, 'Oh Mr Ryder!'

Did not age well.

[Iloveparis660 · 4/10 · 11 April 2021]

Misunderstandings that are very unrealistic. Could not finish watching from the cringe. No one stops to ask her any questions and just assumes she is a hooker.

Neither romantic or comedic - dated premise

[PrairieKid · 1/10 · 12 July 2019]

Dean Martin's character attempts to romance one of his employees in several very inappropriate scenes including intentionally getting her drunk. Very dated behaviour that is cringe worthy today.

Romantic comedy at its finest!!!!!!!

[nixholl · 10/10 · 22 April 2004]

All in a nights work shows everything I love to watch in a movie. Its fun, sassy and has the great one liner, Oh Mr Ryder. Dean Martin and Shirley Maclaine have obvious chemistry in this flick and its just a classic example of how romance used to exist. Although it is a typical mistaken Identity plot for a film of its age it has more wit than others seen at that time. Dean Martin really shows in this film his sophistication as an actor and is at all times Mr Cool. Shirley Maclaine is an actress I have never really watched in the past but she sparkles in this. The ending would have to be my favourite scene, I love this movie and its a classic I can watch again and again.

No classic but well worth seeing nevertheless

[MOscarbradley · 8/10 · 4 March 2021]

No classic but this Joseph Anthony directed romantic comedy is genuinely funny and really deserves to be better known. Dean Martin is at his suave best as the playboy who inherits his uncle's publishing empire after his uncle is found dead in bed with a smile on his face and a girl's earring on the floor and Shirley MacLaine exudes star quality as the girl whose earring it was. Of course, she's totally blameless and as sweet as they come and engaged to Cliff Robertson's vet. Sharply, and very wittily, scripted by Edmund Beloin, Maurice Richlin and Sidney Sheldon from Owen Elford's play, "All in a Night's Work" is a real treat with a first-rate supporting cast that includes Charlie Ruggles, Jerome Cowan, Jack Weston and the great Gale Gordon. Made in 1961, it could just as easily have come out twenty-five years earlier with Cary Grant and Jean Arthur in the Martin/MacLaine roles and Ralph Bellamy as the vet. Hardly ever revived, it's well worth seeking out.

One of my all time favorite comedies

[hollywoodshack · 10/10 · 25 August 2018]

This film makes me laugh hard whenever I watch it. Shirley's assertiveness and Dino's macho charms seem to spark fireworks throughout the comedy. Jack Weston is perfect in the part of the detective and Cliff Robertson is a hilarious choice for a veterinarian. Shirley and Dino rank up at the top of my list of most sexy screen couples along with Bogart and Bacall or Gable and Lombard. Many a junior high school afternoon was spent watching it over to see if 'all' of Shirley might be showing under her towel. It's a film I almost never get tired of watching again.

Oh Mr. Ryder

[Bernie4444 · 10/10 · 5 October 2023]

Tony Ryder (Dean Martin) never took a real interest in his uncle's publishing business until his uncle died. Now the rest of the board of directors does not know what to expect. Luckily it looks like Tony can carry out the moral tradition of the magazine.

There is just one hitch, turns out the hotel detective reports that Uncle Rider died with a smile on his face, and a woman clad only in a towel was seen leaving the room. The only clue to her identity is an earring with the Chinese symbol for "good."

Tony and the board brace themselves knowing that they are ripe for the picking (blackmail) by this mysterious woman. If only they could find her and someone foils her plot.

This film was a long time coming let alone on DVD. You will want to watch it again once you know the story to see the clues that were not so obvious the first time around.