Friday, November 03, 2023

Movie review - "A Night of Adventure" (1944) **

 Tom Conway's success as the Falcon and in the Val Lewton movies saw RKO give him the lead in a B, a remake of a 1934 film. He doesn't have a firm character to play - a smart lawyer, who neglects his wife. It's full of types from 1930s films, and while I love Conway maybe this would've been better with someone with more Broadway energy - Lee Tracy or someone. I did like Audrey Long. She's gorgeous and can act - she married Leslie Charteris IRL!

Oh and the plot is confusing. It starts off with Conway married to Long but always off doing things. So she runs off with an artist which is racy but it's 1944 so not that racy. Really they should have been separated at the start and about to divorce.

Then... the artist's ex wants to kill the artist, which is good... Conway tries to stop her, they struggle, gun goes off... then Conway leaves. Artist gets blamed. Conway defends him. Um... Really Conway should've been more responsible for the death instead of vaguely responsible (apparently his character was in the 1934 version) and he should've been keen to blame the artist so he could get his wife back and make a sacrifice at the end. Instead he lets the artist go on trial... so as to trap a gangster into giving evidence against his boss (this is said at the end). No pay off against the big gangster, or the artist... Conway only decides to do his plan after he discovers the murder scene has been tampered with in the papers... SO for a at least a day he let it slide.

A censored mess. They should've played it as a noir with Conway as a baddie who gets redemption.

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