Tonight's Movie: London By Night (1937)

LONDON BY NIGHT (1937) is a genial MGM "B" mystery starring George Murphy and Rita Johnson.

Murphy plays Michael Denis, an American reporter whose plans to leave for a long-awaited Paris vacation are interrupted by crime in his London neighborhood.

A local business is broken into, a policeman is shot, and eventually a talkative barmaid (Virginia Field) also runs into trouble.

When Michael follows an umbrella-carrying suspect (Leo G. Carroll) through a window into a mansion, he turns out to be a butler employed by Patricia (Johnson) and her father (Montagu Love). It's a fun "meet cute" for Michael and Patricia, who are immediately taken with one another.

Although the film is only 69 minutes long it does get a bit repetitive, but that said, I do love MGM's studio-bound British films. The movie has very nice foggy atmosphere, a good sense of place with the story occurring in buildings set around a London square, and there's also a cute dog named Jones for comic relief. The dog (real name: Corky) has a habit of stealing items, so naturally Michael will need to see Patricia a second time to return what Jones snatched from her house.

There are also a couple interesting minor bits reflecting the era, such as Patricia's father being scandalized that Michael takes her to eat at a pub; he berates Michael for taking her to a "public house."

Murphy is quite pleasant as the intrepid reporter working to solve the case alongside Inspector Jefferson (George Zucco, in a rare good guy role), and it's fun to see Johnson as the slightly giddy, game-for-anything young woman he meets. Johnson affects a light British accent in the role.

Eddie Quillan and J.M. Kerrigan round out the cast. The movie was directed by Wilhelm Thiele and filmed in black and white by Leonard Smith. The screenplay was written by George Oppenheimer from a play by Will Scott.

This film would have been a great candidate for a DVD release by the Warner Archive Collection, but they rarely put out these relatively minor films anymore. I caught it thanks to Turner Classic Movies.

For more on this film, David Vineyard reviewed it earlier this year at Mystery File.

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