Women in the Night
Cast & Crew
William Rowland
Tala Birell
William Henry
Richard Loo
Virginia Christine
Bernadine Hayes
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In 1945, following the defeat of Germany by Allied forces, an international group of women prisoners is being held in a Shanghai hospital that serves as an officers' club. When a sixteen-year-old girl named Helen James is about to be raped by a German officer, she kills him with a broken wine glass. The women are then brought before Nazi Colonel von Meyer for questioning, but no one confesses to the murder. Among the group are American foreign correspondent Claire Adams, French entertainer Yvette Aubert, and Li Lung, the daughter of a wealthy Chinese merchant and a member of the Chinese underground. Von Meyer is expecting the arrival of Japanese Colonel Noyama and Professor Kunioshi in order to hand over plans for a cosmic ray that is one hundred-times more deadly than the atomic bomb. Before they arrive, however, the Allies drop a hydrogen bomb Nagasaki, Japan, and von Meyer, anticipating the imminent defeat of the Japanese, decides to withhold the cosmic ray and use the women as a distraction. The women are given evening gowns and are ordered to look their best for a party that evening. Helen, meanwhile, is reunited with her mother, a washerwoman in the hospital, who has not seen her in two years and has since gone insane. At the party, Kunioshi picks Claire as his companion for the evening, but when the lights go out, she embraces Nazi officer von Arnheim. Helen, meanwhile, is approached by a Japanese man; terrified, she runs to her room, where her mother poisons her to save her virtue. For her crime, Mrs. James is brought before von Meyer, then throws a candelabra at a picture of Hitler and is sentenced to death. Claire, meanwhile, accompanies Kunioshi back to his room, where Li stabs him to death. Claire is then reunited with von Arnheim, who is really her husband Philip, a member of the American Office of Strategic Services. Determined to save herself, Yvette spends the night making love to von Meyer. At dawn, Mrs. James is shot. Later, in the cellar, Li reports Kunioshi's death to her lover Chang, who is a member of the Chinese underground and is in charge of supplies for the club. Chang has smuggled in enough dynamite to blow up the building. Unaware of von Arnheim's real identity, Chang tries to kill him, but Claire intervenes. Meanwhile, the warden, Frau Tyler, finds Kunioshi's body, and the women are again interrogated. The group is surprised to see that Yvette does not turn them in, and she later confesses that her family was butchered before her eyes and that she became a fallen woman in order to survive. Yvette then overhears Noyama tell von Meyer that Von Arnheim is an impostor, and warns him in time for him to escape. Frau Tyler, meanwhile, discovers Li in the cellar with the dynamite and drags her upstairs. The women attack the warden, however, and she falls down the cellar stairs and dies. Claire takes Faur Tyler's warden's key and locates her husband and Chang in an underground meeting place. Meanwhile, at the hospital, the Japanese imprison the women as punishment for Kunioshi's murder. As the Germans shoot the Japanese officers, Chang, Claire and Philip arrive in a truck to save the women. Chang is shot in the mêlée, and Yvette sacrifices herself by lighting the dynamite in the cellar. As they watch the building go up in flames, Claire and Philip embrace.
Director
William Rowland
Cast
Tala Birell
William Henry
Richard Loo
Virginia Christine
Bernadine Hayes
Gordon Richards
Frances Chung
Jean Brooks
Kathy Frye
Helen Mowery
Benson Fong
Helen Brown
Frederick Giermann
Phillip Ahn
Arno Frey
Beal Wong
Iris Flores
Frederick Brunn
Harry Hays Morgan
Paula Allen
Joy Gwynell
William Yetter Sr.
Noel Cravat
Paul Ander
Crew
Joseph C. Ansell
Louis K. Ansell
Louis K. Ansell
Jaime Luis Contreras
James T. Corrigan
W. M. Dalgleish
Jesús Díaz
Roberto Figueroa Mateos
Maude Emily Glass
Antonio Guerrero Tello
Enrique Hutchinson
Arthur Jones
Raúl Lavista
Angelina Mateos
Ali M. Opar
José Ortiz Ramos
Sid Robin
William Rowland
Eugen Shuftan
Robert St. Clair
Francisco Urbina
Carlos Villatoro
Edwin V. Westrate
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The print viewed bore the title Curse of a Teenage Nazi, an apparent television-release title. The film's credits state: "Filmed at the luxurious Playa Ensenada Hotel, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico" and indicate that the story was "Based on official reports on Axis atrocities against women." The credits also acknowledge the technical crew, composed of the Union of Workers of Motion Picture Production of the Republic of Mexico. The film was dedicated to the women of the world who "felt the direct, crushing impact" of World War II.
A written foreword to the film states that it was based on actual secret case histories of crimes against women in Nazi and Japanese officers' clubs. Several reviews questioned the veracity of that claim, however, and Los Angeles Daily News review stated that the film "vainly tries to conceal its deficiencies behind a 'documentary' beginning...[and] is as remote from a documentary as burlesque is from Shakespeare." The foreword also states that the film was produced "in the hope that an aroused public opinion will be instrumental in assuring that this savagery to women will never be repeated." The film marked the first effort for the newly formed Southern California Pictures, which was headed by St. Louis exhibitor Louis K. Ansell.
