All in a Night's Work

No where near as funny as I was expecting but it was maybe intended as being a "sophisticated comedy" at the time it was made. An amusing plot which the script failed to make the best of with the performances of the two leading actors being a bit lacklustre. Still worth a watch however.

Shirley MacLaine was at her most fresh and unaffected when she went straight from 'The Apartment' to this breezily amoral piece of fluff (set in New York but never actually leaving the studio) which features familiar faces old and new (Charles Ruggles plays Cliff Robertson's father, for example), and reunites her with her fellow Rat Packer and co-star from 'Some Came Running' Dean Martin (there's even a joke about Frank Sinatra); in which she's seen sprinting from a hotel bedroom wearing only a turkish towl for the most innocent but unlikely of reasons. The image and likeness of Charles Evans as Martin's uncle the late Colonel Ryder - author of the immortal lines "Love is like a wild volcano, seething with dark desire" - dominates the entire film but he's as usual uncredited (although since he begins the film as a corpse he admittedly doesn't have a speaking part). (At the film's conclusion yet again a bugging device produced clearer sound over sixty years ago than 21st century technology would be capable of today.)

Dean Martin's character attempts to romance one of his employees in several very inappropriate scenes including intentionally getting her drunk. Very dated behaviour that is cringe worthy today.

Misunderstandings that are very unrealistic. Could not finish watching from the cringe. No one stops to ask her any questions and just assumes she is a hooker.

While on vacation in Palm Beach, a research analyst from New York City saves a drunk from drowning--in doing so, she ruins her new dress and is seen sneaking out of a millionaire's hotel room wearing only a towel. The rich guy, a publishing magnate (whom the girl works for!), never even sees her--he's dead in his bed. When his nephew (Dean Martin) takes over the magazine empire, he's made aware that his womanizing uncle was seen with a tootsie on the night of his demise who might be tempted to blackmail the company (how they come to that conclusion is anyone's guess). Anemic sex-and-big business comedy is a big step down from "The Apartment" just one year before. "Apartment" co-star Shirley MacLaine (who received an Oscar nom for her work in that film) is back doing the same kind of scatterbrained, breathlessly 'adorable' work she did in all her pictures leading up to "The Apartment". The comic situations are desperately juvenile, such as MacLaine's beau (Cliff Robertson, acting the stiff) coming across the mink coat Shirley acquired after her good deed and embarrassing her in front of his stuffy parents. The screenwriters (Edmund Beloin, Maurice Richlin and Sidney Sheldon, adapting Owen Elford's play) frantically iron and re-iron their story wrinkles, substituting wit with groaning one-liners. It takes one tipsy scene from MacLaine to get an honest laugh, the rest being ham-handed and overplayed. ** from ****

This film makes me laugh hard whenever I watch it. Shirley's assertiveness and Dino's macho charms seem to spark fireworks throughout the comedy. Jack Weston is perfect in the part of the detective and Cliff Robertson is a hilarious choice for a veterinarian. Shirley and Dino rank up at the top of my list of most sexy screen couples along with Bogart and Bacall or Gable and Lombard. Many a junior high school afternoon was spent watching it over to see if 'all' of Shirley might be showing under her towel. It's a film I almost never get tired of watching again.

The film is OK because it has two leads with great chemistry, the Technicolor is delightful and ultimately it's harmless fun to view on a dark rainy night if you are stuck for something to watch. But really the picture doesn't add up to anything outside of a time filler. Based around the Owen Elford play, it has a couple of decent sequences; witness Dean Martin at the vets and Shirley MacLaine trying to keep her modesty as she escapes from a hotel room, but the sense of cramming gags in for gags sake hinders the flow of the picture. Both Dean Martin & Shirley MacLaine are fine here, both handsome in equal measure, while Cliff Robertson stands out a mile from the rest of the supporting cast, yet in truth, as Rom-Coms from the 60s go, this is way down on the list of must sees for prospective watchers of the genre persuasion. 4/10

One of the funniest (my opinion only) Dean Martin and Shirley Maclaine movies I've ever seen. I never miss it, when it's shown on cable t.v. Can't understand why after so many years it is "not" yet available on VHS and DVD? I'm still waiting!!! Will definitely become part of my video "library."

source: All in a Night's Work

Trailer—All in a Night's Work