Jack La Rue plays a nightclub owner whom is keen to climb the social ladder and to swap his girlfriend for another with 'more class'. Given some of the people he is mixing with, including the double-crossing criminal he shoots, this hardly seems an unreasonable ambition. And with La Rue failing to come over as remotely menacing, you end up feeling rather sorry for him. So as a story it doesn't really work and I can understand those who found it all dreadfully dull. Though I found quite a bit to enjoy, including the opening sweeping views of the West-End of 1938 at night, and the nightclub scenes with the banter and the revelry that take up so much of the running time, including the amusing performance from the young Googie Withers, as well as the clothes of the period. A curiosity is the number of American actors involved. Surely they had not all made the long journey to Elstree to make a picture that was only ever going to be a supporting feature?
Review of Murder in the Night
