Nice effects though.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

At only 58 minutes the film packs a lot of drama into its running time. Murder, humour, adultery, violence, philosophy, dancing, tragedy and love to name a few. It is impressively filmed from the saucy opening montage to the final scene in the snowy street. Set in a nightclub over one night it weaves together several stories, light and dark. Tim the Doorman says of the people in the night club,"Most all them folks is starving for something, and it ain't food."The cast is fine; Lew Ayres as the deeply troubled young man, Boris Karloff as the club owner beset by gangsters and his unfaithful wife, Dorothy Revier as the wife, Russell Hopton as the 'other man', Byron Foulger as a very gay man and the great Clarence Muse as the doorman worrying about his sick wife. One of the club dancers is played by Mae Clarke and she is the shining centre of the film. Clarke gives a feisty and radiant performance. It baffles one how under used she was in films and never got to be a big star. It has been called a low budget 'Grand Hotel' but it stands on its own very well.

You can certainly tell that "Night World" is a pre-code picture. It's set in a speakeasy--just the sort of sordid locale that wouldn't have been allowed after the new Production Code went into effect in mid-1934. Of course, by then alcohol was legal and speakeasies were a thing of the past anyways. The film is very much like a soap opera--with a variety of folks and love affairs going on during the course of the picture.Several story lines are going on at the same time in this film and at then end, they all converge. One story is about the owners of the club, Happy (Boris Karloff) and Jill. However, Jill is cheating on her hubby and the way this story ends is pure dynamite. The main story involves a young man who's been drinking himself into oblivion (Lew Ayres). Why and his relationship with a girl who works in the club (Mae Clark) is fascinating. Finally, the doorman (Clarence Muse) has something going on with his sick wife. Again, all three stories converge at the end for a very slick and tense finale.I rarely give short films like this such high scores. However, with this one, the writing was so good and the ending so enjoyable I highly recommend it. Thrilling and enjoyable throughout.By the way, the dance numbers, though smaller in scale than his trademark choreography, were directed by Busby Berkeley.

Yes, it's a cheap versions of GRAND HOTEL, but I think it works just fine. I'm going to disagree with some previous reviewers: I think Karloff is marvelous as the club owner, bringing a fierceness and bravado to it that others would lack. The rest of the cast is also good: Ayres, Marsh and Muse all register strongly. Hedda Hopper is indeed amazing as the bad mother. And George Raft stands out in his small part. A little of it is creaky and dated, but overall, I thought the camera-work was fluid and fine, the story moved fast and the characters were well-written. Nice little Busby Berkeley number near the top, too. Well worth checking out.

Fun, saucy, fast-moving and short, Night World is a neat little movie from the early thirties, before Prohibition was repealed, when Hoover was still in the White House; and with a Depression still new there was yet a Gatsby mood in the cities. The credits of this movie are unusual. Busby Berkeley did the choreography. Alfred Newman composed what music there is. The cast is oddball for any sort of film, but especially peculiar for this kind: Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, Hedda Hopper, George Raft and Jack La Rue. Director Hobart Henley handles his material extremely well, and gives it pace and energy. There is joy, sadness, corruption, disillusionment and heartbreak in the movie, and the ending is bittersweet but not downbeat.