His Night Out
Cast & Crew
William Nigh
Edward Everett Horton
Irene Hervey
Jack Larue
Robert Mcwade
Lola Lane
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Homer B. Bitts, a bumbling hypochondriac, works as a purchasing agent for the Davis Drug Company and is in love with Peggy Taylor, secretary to the company's owner. When Homer learns that Peggy's young brother Jimmy, who has been hospitalized with a chronic hip disorder, needs an operation that will cost $1,500, he secretly donates his savings for the cause. At the urging of Peggy, who advises him to be less apologetic and more assertive, he then visits a doctor to determine if his various hiccups, burps and sneezes are truly symptomatic or merely psychosomatic. After the gullible Homer is told by the doctor, a quack, that he only has three months to live, he rushes back to his office and, without confiding in Peggy, makes out his will. Filled with sudden abandon, Homer withdraws $200 of his savings and takes Peggy for a night on the town, part of which is witnessed by a disapproving Davis. The next Monday, while Homer takes his time arriving for work, Davis and fellow drug company owner J. J. Trent discover that $100,000 in collateral bonds have been stolen from the office safe. Because she was the last person to open the safe, Peggy is suspected of the theft, and Homer of being her accomplice. To protect Peggy, whom Homer believes took the bonds to pay for Jimmy's operation, Homer confesses to the crime and is arrested. Later, Peggy finds Homer's will and tells Davis and Trent about the quack's deathly prognosis. While Peggy arranges with a sympathetic Trent to bail Homer out of jail, the real thieves, a gang of thugs headed by Joe Ferranza, speculate about Homer's underworld connections. Sure that Homer is a "stooge" for rival gangster Charlie Spanner, Ferranza hires a shyster to make Homer's bail and ambush him. After Ferranza interrogates a bemused Homer, however, he concludes that his prisoner is merely foolish and decides to use him as a front to launder the stolen bonds. While he is being held half-naked in a warehouse, Lola, Ferranza's double-crossing girl friend, convinces Homer to help her steal the bonds with her former lover, Spanner. Before Lola can execute her scheme, however, a suspicious Ferranza has her followed to Spanner's nightclub and, after sewing the bonds into the lining of his coat, "takes her for a ride." Later, as he attempts to tie up Homer, Ferranza is knocked out in the warehouse by a falling trunk. Homer steals Ferranza's gun and suit, escapes from the warehouse, and telephones Peggy that he is going to the nightclub to retrieve the bonds from the thieves. Although concerned for Homer's safety, Peggy goes to the club and urges him to confront the gang like a true man. Ferranza's men overpower the gun-wielding Homer, however, and are about to strip him of the bond-filled jacket when the police, who have been alerted by Peggy, rush to the scene. Ferranza and his men steal a police car and flee with Homer in tow. Chased by the police, Peggy, Davis and Trent, Ferranza's car eventually crashes into a river, and Homer is pulled half-drowned from the water. After Homer returns the bonds to a relieved Davis, he berates his boss for his lack of appreciation and is offered a job by Trent. Impressed by Homer's manly transformation, Peggy happily accepts his proposal of marriage.
Director
William Nigh
Cast
Edward Everett Horton
Irene Hervey
Jack Larue
Robert Mcwade
Lola Lane
Willard Robertson
Oscar Apfel
Dewey Robinson
Ward Bond
Theodore Von Eltz
Clarence Wilson
Rollo Lloyd
Clara Kimball Young
John Carnivale
Archie Robbins
Jack Norton
Greta Meyer
Virginia Howell
Anne O'neal
Billy Barrud
Boyd Irwin
Tommy Bupp
Jerry Tucker
David Tillotson
Jack Kennedy
Harold Waldridge
Joseph Reilly
Jack Cheatham
Al Matthews
Philip Morris
Jimmy Dundee
Frank Sheridan
Cy Kendall
Frank Mayo
George Cleveland
Eddy Chandler
Kirby & Degage
Cyril Thornton
Alphonse Martell
Francisco Maran
Jean Rogers
Rosemary Labee
Donald Haines
Harry Depp
Jack Mulhall
Pat West
John King
Matty Kemp
Jack Mack
Milburn Stone
Donald Kerr
Robert Ingersoll
Olaf Hytten
Toby Thompson
Jerry Mandy
Minerva Urecal
Guy Usher
Brady Kline
Priscilla Lawson
Charles Regan
Sam Finn
Eddie Anderson
Nan Grey
Diana Gibson
Crew
Ralph Berger
Brymer
Charles Carroll
Charles Christensen
Harry Clork
Connie Earl
John P. Fulton
Phil Karlstein
Gilbert Kurland
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle
Doris Malloy
Daniel Mandell
Fred S. Meyer
Victor Noerdlinger
Maurice Pivar
Edward J. Snyder
Irving Starr
Franz Waxman
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Hollywood Reporter production charts list a novel by Henry Irving Dodge as the source of this film, but all other contemporary sources, including copyright and Screen Achievements Bulletin, credit Charles Christensen with an original screen story. Some modern sources claim that this film is a remake of a 1924 Universal picture called Oh, Doctor! Harry Leon Wilson wrote the novel on which the 1924 film and a 1937 Universal remake, also called Oh, Doctor!, are based. While some similarities exist among the three films, especially in the inclusion of a bumbling, hypochondriac protagonist, the 1935 picture is significantly different from the other two and should not be considered a remake.
