London by Night
A newspaperman, his canine companion, and an adventurous socialite investigate an umbrella-wielding murderer who is terrorizing a London neighborhood.
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- Cast:
- George Murphy , Rita Johnson , Virginia Field , Leo G. Carroll , George Zucco , Montagu Love , Eddie Quillan
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Reviews
Memorable, crazy movie
Don't listen to the negative reviews
Am i the only one who thinks........Average?
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Nothing in this MGM B-Movie Works. The Mystery is Blown in the First Five Minutes with Some Very Bad Make-Up and the Bad Make-Up is Used for Two Other Characters Before this Really Bad Movie Concludes.The Acting is Atrocious by All Except the Dog and Even He Cannot Match His Prototype from The Thin Man Series. Everything Here is Overcooked and Insufferable. The Characters are Stereotypical to the Extreme and the Film, Shot on the Back-Lot, Looks Confined, Stagy, and Hardly Atmospheric.George Murphy is a Hammy Bore, the Bar-Maid Will Have You Rolling Your Eyes or Running Out of the Room, and the Usually Reliable George Zucco and Leo G. Carroll are Trying Hard to Make Things Interesting but to No Avail. It's Perhaps One of the Worst Movies Ever Made with the MGM Logo.
London by Night (1937) was a B movie, set in London (read: back lot of MGM) and starring George Murphy, Virginia Field, Rita Johnson, Leo G. Carroll, George Zucco, Montagu Love, and Corky. This film is actually based on a play that was never produced.Murphy plays Michel Denis, a newspaperman in London who, in the morning, is leaving for a vacation in Paris. He and his buddy, a dog named Jones, decide to stay in London, however, to help solve a series of murders by a man carrying an umbrella.Along the way, he meets a pretty socialite (Johnson), who lives in a house that includes her father (Zucco) and a butler (Carroll).The atmosphere is captured with lots of fog and some dreadful Cockney, the worst offender being the usually likable Virginia Field. She overdid her role as a barmaid big time.George Murphy was an actor of terrific charm, and he brings it on here. The dog who plays his dog, Corky, is terrific.Pleasant.
There's not much to this. A reporter is detained from a trip to Paris due to a series of murders he initially has not interest in. He gets hooked up with a rich girl who likes adventure and this almost gets her killed. The murderer runs around with an umbrella which identifies him but also keeps him from being apprehended (it is foggy, after all, and everyone seems to have the same umbrella). There are some pretty good performances by Leo G. Carroll and George Zucco. George Murphy pulls things off pretty well, but the whole plot is too transparent. There is also an interesting romantic development between the two leads. The ending leaves a bit to be desired, but it does have some plausibility. Nevertheless, the film is interesting, atmospheric in places, but pretty unremarkable.
This decent but unremarkable programmer has George Murphy sliding occasionally into his Irish brogue, as a reporter in foggy London who wants to go on vacation, but he needs to solve the mystery of 'the Umbrella Man' and court Rita Johnson -- doing a Billie Burke imitation -- assisted and hampered by his dog and Scotland Yard.As you can tell from that description, it has occasional screwball overtones, but it's largely carried by Murphy's Irish charm. MGM didn't do many of this sort of movie once you descended from the heights of the THIN MAN series, and so it needs to be compared to the RKO programmers of the type. It comes off well in most departments, but it does lack focus and depends on the charm of Mr. George Murphy.... later U.S. Senator. That's one way of getting there, I suppose.