The Night Club Lady
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Irving Cummings
Adolphe Menjou
Mayo Methot
Skeets Gallagher
Ruthelma Stevens
Blanche Friderici
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Lola Carewe, a nightclub owner known as "The Night Club Lady," receives a series of death threats but insists on going to her nightclub on New Year's Eve. At the club, Lola is seen by New York City police commissioner Thatcher Colt. Colt learns that Lola's life has been threatened to end before midnight. He goes to her table and in doing so, saves Lola from a shot fired from behind a curtain. Colt and his plainclothes policemen return Lola to her apartment, and although they stand guard, she screams and dies at midnight. Dr. Lengle claims a heart attack caused Lola's death, but Colt suspects murder. Colt finds a lipstick-smirched photograph of an old beau, Basil Bouchette, but learns that he is dead. Then, the body of Lola's companion, Christine Quires, is found hanging outside the window. Colt dispatches pictures of all the suspects to police headquarters around the world. Colt then assembles the suspects and reveals that they were each blackmailed by Lola, giving each one good reason to kill her. After the suspects leave, Colt tells his friend, Tony, that he is trying to smoke out the guilty party. Colt examines the mark on Lola's arm where Lengel gave her an injection, and decides that it was an attempt to conceal the bite of a scorpion, which must have been planted in the robe she wore at the time of her death. Colt deduces that Christine was killed for interrupting the murderer's preparations. Colt goes to Lengel's apartment but finds him dead from a scorpion bite, and learns that Lengel recently bought two scorpions. The Paris police telephone to reveal that Basil killed himself six years earlier because of Lola. Once again, the suspects are gathered in Lola's apartment, where Colt re-enacts the death scene. Mrs. Carewe, Lola's "stage mother," bends over Colt, and as she walks away, he gets up and reveals a glove she wears that enables her to pick up secretly the scorpion she planted in his robe. Mrs. Carewe is really Mrs. Bouchette, Basil's mother. She had long planned revenge on Lola for Basil's death, and Lengel was killed to keep him from talking. After admitting her guilt, Mrs. Bouchette jumps from the window to her death. Later, Colt and Tony wrestle at the athletic club, and Colt reveals he was wearing a special covering to protect him from the scorpion.
Director
Irving Cummings
Cast
Adolphe Menjou
Mayo Methot
Skeets Gallagher
Ruthelma Stevens
Blanche Friderici
Nat Pendleton
Albert Conti
Greta Granstedt
Gerald Fielding
Ed Brady
Lee Phelps
George Humbert
Niles Welch
William Von Brincken
Teru Shimada
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
According to the press material found in the copyright records, this film was the first of an anticipated series of Anthony Abbot's Thatcher Colt mysteries starring Adolphe Menjou; however, only one other entry was made, Columbia's The Circus Queen Murders in 1933. According to modern sources, Walter Wanger was executive producer.
