A Manhattan call girl seeks to escape her sordid existence...
Warner Brothers' unsavory but sincere adaptation of Dr. Harold Greenwald's academic best seller, "The Call Girl: A Social and Analytic Study", was light years ahead of the sanitized silliness Paramount dished out four years later in A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME, based on notorious NYC madam Polly Adler's memoirs -but with the Production Code still more-or-less in effect, how did Warners get away with it? The source, of course. The Legion Of Deceny gave GIRL OF THE NIGHT a special classification but for all that, the book (which began as a doctoral dissertation) "sold mainly because of the stories it told about prostitutes" and this tawdry tale wallows in its melodramatic misery even as it tries to probe the psychological scars driving Robin ("Bobbie") Williams. She's an emotionally damaged woman-child "beautiful enough to be a model, chic enough to be a débutante, desirable enough to be a wife -and special enough to be none of these. She has no legal occupation. But she lives on Park Avenue and drips mink. Now you will find out how, where, and why." We do and it isn't pretty. Anne Francis gives her all as the tormented lady of the evening in what may be her best screen performance; she's a hard case caught up in an ugly, sadistic world and too vulnerable by far, especially when it comes to her worthless pimp, Larry (a surprisingly effective John Kerr). Her patient psychotherapist (an earnest, understanding Lloyd Nolan) eventually breaks down the dichotomy and provides real albeit clichéd insight into what makes that kind of chick tick. Deadpan Kay Medford's madam was more realistic than Shelley Winters' in A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME but both shady ladies had one of their unlucky lasses go sailing out a high rise window as a kind of cautionary metaphor. The movie was shot on location in New York City and the intentionally murky cinematography (including lots of venetian blind shadows criss-crossing Anne's face) had the same somber effect it did in the following year's BLAST OF SILENCE but the hopeful ending almost defeats its dark purpose. Fortunately the director, Joseph Cates, would go on to make the sleazy cult classic, WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?, which did have a satisfyingly downbeat denouement. After this, Warners wanted Anne Francis for Erskine Caldwell's titular tramp, CLAUDELLE INGLISH, but the lady said no, preferring to pop up on TV, most notably in a classic episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE where being locked in a department store overnight elicited the same kind of insight into herself she got here. I can only assume there's no clamor for Warner Archives to release GIRL OF THE NIGHT because no one knows what they're missing. Now you know.
Warner Brothers' unsavory but sincere adaptation of Dr. Harold Greenwald's academic best seller, "The Call Girl: A Social and Analytic Study", was light years ahead of the sanitized silliness Paramount dished out four years later in A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME, based on notorious NYC madam Polly Adler's memoirs -but with the Production Code still more-or-less in effect, how did Warners get away with it? The source, of course. The Legion Of Deceny gave GIRL OF THE NIGHT a special classification but for all that, the book (which began as a doctoral dissertation) "sold mainly because of the stories it told about prostitutes" and this tawdry tale wallows in its melodramatic misery even as it tries to probe the psychological scars driving Robin ("Bobbie") Williams. She's an emotionally damaged woman-child "beautiful enough to be a model, chic enough to be a débutante, desirable enough to be a wife -and special enough to be none of these. She has no legal occupation. But she lives on Park Avenue and drips mink. Now you will find out how, where, and why." We do and it isn't pretty. Anne Francis gives her all as the tormented lady of the evening in what may be her best screen performance; she's a hard case caught up in an ugly, sadistic world and too vulnerable by far, especially when it comes to her worthless pimp, Larry (a surprisingly effective John Kerr). Her patient psychotherapist (an earnest, understanding Lloyd Nolan) eventually breaks down the dichotomy and provides real albeit clichéd insight into what makes that kind of chick tick. Deadpan Kay Medford's madam was more realistic than Shelley Winters' in A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME but both shady ladies had one of their unlucky lasses go sailing out a high rise window as a kind of cautionary metaphor. The movie was shot on location in New York City and the intentionally murky cinematography (including lots of venetian blind shadows criss-crossing Anne's face) had the same somber effect it did in the following year's BLAST OF SILENCE but the hopeful ending almost defeats its dark purpose. Fortunately the director, Joseph Cates, would go on to make the sleazy cult classic, WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?, which did have a satisfyingly downbeat denouement. After this, Warners wanted Anne Francis for Erskine Caldwell's titular tramp, CLAUDELLE INGLISH, but the lady said no, preferring to pop up on TV, most notably in a classic episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE where being locked in a department store overnight elicited the same kind of insight into herself she got here. I can only assume there's no clamor for Warner Archives to release GIRL OF THE NIGHT because no one knows what they're missing. Now you know.