One Wild Night
Cast & Crew
Eugene Forde
June Lang
Dick Baldwin
Lyle Talbot
J. Edward Bromberg
Sidney Toler
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
After the third abduction in a week of a prominent citizen of Stockton, Ohio, the mayor, who is trying to get reelected, is visited by banker Norman, who insists that the mayor call for outside help if police chief William Nolan cannot handle the situation. Nolan is furious, and his mood is not helped when his assistant Lawton shows him a telegram from his son Jimmy, who, after one month in criminology school in Washington, D.C., plans to return to offer his "scientific" assistance. On the train home, Jimmy meets Gale Gibson, a frustrated newspaperwoman assigned to write a suburban society column. Upon learning about the "crime wave" from Jimmy, Gale gets off the train and calls Collins, her editor, with the story. When Jimmy arrives in his father's office, Nolan angrily shows him Gale's story, which quotes Jimmy criticizing the police for their "horse and buggy" methods. When Gale then arrives to get a further story, Nolan calls Collins and threatens to sue unless the story is retracted, whereupon Collins agrees and fires Gale. When she lets Nolan know that she has found one of the ransom bills from the recent abduction, he calls Collins to insist that she get her job back. After Gale, Jimmy and Lawton track the bill to bookmaker Singer Martin, Gale tells Collins that they plan to arrest Martin, but when the editor calls to verify the story, he finds that Jimmy and Lawton have found no more ransom money in Martin's safe and he fires Gale again. Next, Jimmy and Lawton investigate Norman's bank. Gale has discovered another ransom bill among those she received at the bank when she cashed her last check. Soon, some thirty depositors, including a reverend, are discovered to have ransom bills, and pandemonium sets in as the police arrest them. Norman then notices a letter left for him stating that he will be abducted next and that the extortionists want $50,000. After Collins publishes Gale's story, he is sued fourteen times for libel, and he chases Gale when she returns. Nolan gives Jimmy a one-way ticket to Washington and assigns Lawton to be a doorman, but Jimmy convinces Lawton that they should shadow Martin. As Lawton waits outside Martin's apartment, Jimmy goes into a drug store, where Gale, feeling sick, enters. When Martin's limo drives up, Gale sneaks into the rumble seat. Jimmy and Lawton find Norman's car on a county road with bullet holes in the windows. After Martin stops and carries Norman out, Gale gets out of the rumble seat and goes to a farmhouse to call Collins. The occupants, the Hallidays, think she is a burglar, and Collins, very irate, tells them she is a homicidal maniac. Gale calls the police and reports that Norman has been killed by Martin, but Jimmy answers and tells Halliday to lock her in a room. When they arrive at the farmhouse, Jimmy, Nolan and Lawton find that Gale has escaped with the Halliday family album and has left a trail of pictures to lead them to the hideout, near a waterwheel. Jimmy finds Norman tied up, and he says that Martin tried to kill him. Martin, however, says that Norman kidnapped him. After a chase, they find that the three abducted men are actually hiding; they planned with Norman to go to the South Seas, a trip they knew their wives would never allow them to take, and each had drawn out $50,000 of their own money for Norman to bring to them. Norman explains that he brought Martin there to pay for his silence. When the others demand their money back, Norman tries to leave, but Jimmy tackles him and then tricks him into confessing that he had speculated with some of the bank's money and planned to steal the money from the "abducted" men and leave them at the mill. Gale runs to call in her story and falls through a trap door, then slides into the water. Jimmy carries her out and calls her "darling," but when she insists that she has to get her story in, he drops her.
Director
Eugene Forde
Cast
June Lang
Dick Baldwin
Lyle Talbot
J. Edward Bromberg
Sidney Toler
Andrew Tombes
William Demarest
Romaine Callender
Jan Duggan
Spencer Charters
Harlan Briggs
Sherry Hall
Harvey Clark
Arthur Hoyt
Paul Mcvey
George H. Reed
Otto Hoffman
Johnny Arthur
Wade Boteler
William Wagner
George Chandler
Creighton Hale
Syd Saylor
Landers Stevens
Lee Shumway
May Beatty
Clem Bevans
Frank Mcglynn Jr.
Harry Depp
Jack Dougherty
Billy Wayne
Harvey Parry
John Gibson
Claire Du Brey
Buster Slaven
Robert Lowery
Crew
William H. Anderson
Charles Belden
Jerry Cady
Harry Davis
Nick De Maggio
Haldane Douglas
William Eckhardt
W. D. Flick
Bernard Herzbrun
Samuel Kaylin
Helen A. Myron
John Stone
Edwin Torgerson
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working titles of this film were Handle with Care, Time Out for Murder and Home Town G-Man. According to Los Angeles Times, June Lang and Dick Baldwin won the leads for this film because "they evidenced the ability to do comedy quite capably together in the picture International Settlement" (see below).
