Just perfect...

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

****SPOILERS*** Off the wall and unintentionally funny post WWII movie involving a number of Nazi higher ups who escaped from their homeland after it was defeated by the allied forces to Japan to start up a new world war for the fatherland, Nazi Germany, that in fact at the time August 1945 no longer existed! The film also has a women liberation story line or point of view in how women, of all races creeds and colors, was brutally mistreated by the Nazis and their Japanese allies in and out of captivity.It seems that the escaped Nazis had developed a super cosmic ray gun 1,000 times more powerful then the atomic bomb that at the time was being dropped on Japanese cities Hiroshima & Nagasaki that they planned to use to defeat the allies in a new world war that they were planning to start. This at a time that their allies the Japanese ware days away from surrendering unconditionally to the allied forces! At the same time were shown in no uncertain terms that the treacherous Nazis were planning to double cross their allies the Japanese by keeping their super secret cosmic ray gun from them in order to win, the new world war that they plan to start, all by themselves and have no one else, like the Japanese,to share the glory and riches with them!Mindless and totally idiotic movie that has the Nazis look far more insane then any Hollywood movie made about them, like "Hitler Dead or Alive", during the height of WWII.The Nazis as well as their Japanses "allies" are so oblivious of whats going on in the world in them losing the war and their nations being completely devastated by round the clock areal bombardments that its hard to take their actions, in them thinking that their winning the war, seriously even if you wanted to. There's of course the beautiful American nurse Claie Adams, Virginia Christine, who's one of the imprisoned women by the Nazis who's being forced to put out, if you know what I mean, to their and the Japanses military in the Shanghai officers club who was actually planted there as a spy as well as saboteur and assassin. That's to knock of top German and Japanese scientists who are involved in the cosmic ray gun project in preventing it from getting off the ground.***SPOILERS*** And get ready for this in that it's Clair's husband who's working for US military intelligence who infiltrated the Nazi Japanese ring as German Major Von Archeim, William Henry,who despite his very prominent and obvious American accent the Nazis and Japanese have no idea of his true identity! There's also Chinese/American actor Richard Loo again playing a Japanese villain Col. Noyama who looks like,in knowing how ridicules the movie is, he's trying to keep a straight face in all the scenes he's in. And last but not least there's Chinese/American actor Benson Fong playing a real Chinses national delivery boy Chang who smuggles explosives into the Nazi officers club to be used to blow the place to bits by the time the the film is finally and mercifully put to an end. That's before it causes anybody still watching it ending up laughing themselves to death!

This Republican programmer is set in Shanghai during the days between the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender – although it was actually filmed in a Mexican hotel. Although the Nazis surrendered a few months before, a few of them are still marching around in full uniform, abducting virginal teenage girls on their way to church from the street and forcing them to serve as 'hostesses' at the German Officers Club. The Nazis are already plotting their return with a dastardly 'cosmic ray' which will definitely win them the third world war in ways the script neglects to explain. The Japs want the Nazis secret weapon but the Nazis don't want to give it to them and keep bombarding them with kidnapped women and alcohol in an attempt to make them forget all about it.With a title like Women in the Night and a Poverty Row studio providing the finance it's hardly a surprise that this effort is pretty poor, even though it might have been camp fun in the hands of more capable filmmakers. This could almost have been a template for all those whip-wielding Nazi chick exploitation efforts of the 70s. The chief German officer – the one who isn't the spy with an undisguised American accent – has a thin scar on his left cheek and a monocle glued to his right eye socket. When an underling attempts to stamp out a flaming portrait of Hitler he is scolded by the officer with a fierce, 'you are stamping on ze Fuehrer!' He also has a couple of women working for him who are engaged in a lesbian relationship, although this being the 40s the fact is only hinted at in a couple of lines of dialogue.

This piece of cheapo, post war Nazi & 'Nip' bashing must hold some sort of record for the most on screen verbiage before the first spoken line of dialogue in motion picture history.First we have a scrolling prologue (four screens full) - Followed by an establishing shot of the 'Bureau of Records', followed by a stock footage interior, and a zoom in on a drawer labelled "Case Histories Crimes Against Women", a tilt down to another drawer: "Confidential". A hand pulls open the drawer and starts to flip through the files giving us a chance to read their titles and some of the contents: (three shots showing eleven separate bits of paper to read). The last piece of paper is turned over to reveal a still photo of some women and a German soldier. Lap dissolve to stock footage of somewhere labelled: "Shanghai". Dissolve to yet another on-screen, full-screen message: "In the Final Days of the war...blah blah blah". Cut to another filing drawer, a hand pulls out yet another typewritten card to read: "Crimes against Hospital Nurses Location: Shanghai". Lap dissolve to a sign "University Hospital"... Dear god! I'm loosing the will to live here... Another dissolve to a sign saying "Nurses Quarters", another dissolve to a crucifix. The entire audience spells out 'I N R I' to themselves they are, by now, so used to reading anything that's on the screen.In all it's four and a half minutes! before anyone says anything meaningful - and then it's to read out a list of the character's names as they step forward one by one. Heaven help us! Not more establishing!There are seven writers credited with the script on this; I guess none of them had an eraser.

Les Adams's lengthy summary of this production and its plot would suggest he has seen the film.I beg to differ on a few minor points: The hostesses are not all Anglos though there is one from Angleterre. The U.S.,Mexico,France,China and maybe Australia are also represented. The secret wife of William Henry is not Tala Birell, but Virginia Christine. Tala Birell ,the "Shanghai Mata Hari", received top-billing performing superior to the part. The production was filmed over a thirty day period at the Playa Ensenada Hotel in Mexico utilizing some very attractive interior decor. There are a few outdoor scene but they are minor. The plot is not so sordid but the lesbian relationship between the character's played by Jeans Brooks and Bernadene Hayes is clearly indicated. My 16mm print of this film,formerly owned by William K.Everson, is retitled CAPTURED.Film Classics sold off the rights to the film within two years. WOMEN IN THE NIGHT is a great favortte of Elliot Lavine, esteemed San Francisco programmer,formerly with the Roxie Cinema. He has show the film several times at the Roxie and at the Los Angeles Film School. Surviving cast member Iris Flores (Ride the Pink Horse), who played the Mexican hostess, attended the Los Angeles screening with her extended family several years ago, and I understand it was a warmly enjoyed event.