Girl of the Night (1960) Online

It took me a moment or so before I could remember this film - and then it came to me. At the time this film came out, I was 20 years old and living in a hotel on 44th Street, just off Broadway in New York City. Right around the corner, playing in a movie theater (located just below the then famous "Camels" smoking man display) was this film.

Outside they had hooked up a series of telephones near the lobby entrance, so that you could talk (pre-recorded) to a "Call Girl." The voice you heard was that of actress Anne Francis as the film's central character.

At the time I thought it was quite hokey and, at first, didn't spend my scarce funds on the film. But some days later a friend treated me to the film, and I was quite surprised and very impressed.

This was a damn good film for its time. The theme was hardly ever touched upon in films in those days. In fact, in most, at best hinted at briefly in the dialog.

This film, however, was well scripted and laid the subject bare with well written dialog. In my opinion, had it been produced some two or so decades later, Ms. Francic would have been deservedly nominated for an Academy Award.

GIRL OF THE NIGHT is probably not easy to locate, but for fans of the period, the cast and the psychodrama genre, it's worth searching for.

Probably considered very daring in 1960, this film offers a prostitute as the main character and it really does not judge her. In the very capable hands of Anne Francis, Bobbie becomes a multi-faceted and sympathetic subject for psychiatrist Lloyd Nolan. Their analysis scenes are quite convincing because the dialog is always plausible and unhackneyed. We come to understand Bobbie as a victim, who understands why her life has gone on this route. As the film proceeds, we meet Bobbie's pimp Larry (handsome John Kerr), with whom she believes she is in love, and her madame played with chilling realism by Kay Medford. The one unconvincing thing in the movie is the character of Lisa, played by Eileen Fulton. Would such a young woman really resort to prostitution, for any reason? We think not. She seems not to understand what she is getting into, until it's "too late" for her.

This movie draws upon Film Noir for much of its atmosphere, and it has a strong feeling of fatalism about it, until psychotherapy intervenes and helps Bobbie see the light (partly in the person of Dan (James Broderick). Sol Kaplan's musical score often overwhelms a scene, but the shadowy cinematography of Joseph Brun gives the film a memorable look.

The storyline is straight forward, and there aren't any surprises or hooks in the plot, but the story explores motives and rationale, and is as frank and honest as a film on the subject could be in 1960.

Anne Francis gives a layer of realism to her character, and is in practically every scene. She carries the film, and delivers a great performance. Kay Medford, an actress that usually is cast in fluffier roles, is a delight to watch as a madam resigned to her station in life.

John Kerr, better known as Lt. Cable in South Pacific, is a great foil to Bobbie's attempts to better her position ... He's a guy you love to hate.

Lloyd Nolan is fine, as always, in his role, but he really doesn't have too much to do.

Girl of the Night is worth seeking out, especially if you are an Anne Francis fan ..

A Manhattan call girl seeks to escape her sordid existence...

Warner Brothers' unsavory but sincere adaptation of Dr. Harold Greenwald's academic best seller, "The Call Girl: A Social and Analytic Study", was light years ahead of the sanitized silliness Paramount dished out four years later in A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME, based on notorious NYC madam Polly Adler's memoirs -but with the Production Code still more-or-less in effect, how did Warners get away with it? The source, of course. The Legion Of Deceny gave GIRL OF THE NIGHT a special classification but for all that, the book (which began as a doctoral dissertation) "sold mainly because of the stories it told about prostitutes" and this tawdry tale wallows in its melodramatic misery even as it tries to probe the psychological scars driving Robin ("Bobbie") Williams. She's an emotionally damaged woman-child "beautiful enough to be a model, chic enough to be a débutante, desirable enough to be a wife -and special enough to be none of these. She has no legal occupation. But she lives on Park Avenue and drips mink. Now you will find out how, where, and why." We do and it isn't pretty. Anne Francis gives her all as the tormented lady of the evening in what may be her best screen performance; she's a hard case caught up in an ugly, sadistic world and too vulnerable by far, especially when it comes to her worthless pimp, Larry (a surprisingly effective John Kerr). Her patient psychotherapist (an earnest, understanding Lloyd Nolan) eventually breaks down the dichotomy and provides real albeit clichéd insight into what makes that kind of chick tick. Deadpan Kay Medford's madam was more realistic than Shelley Winters' in A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME but both shady ladies had one of their unlucky lasses go sailing out a high rise window as a kind of cautionary metaphor. The movie was shot on location in New York City and the intentionally murky cinematography (including lots of venetian blind shadows criss-crossing Anne's face) had the same somber effect it did in the following year's BLAST OF SILENCE but the hopeful ending almost defeats its dark purpose. Fortunately the director, Joseph Cates, would go on to make the sleazy cult classic, WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?, which did have a satisfyingly downbeat denouement. After this, Warners wanted Anne Francis for Erskine Caldwell's titular tramp, CLAUDELLE INGLISH, but the lady said no, preferring to pop up on TV, most notably in a classic episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE where being locked in a department store overnight elicited the same kind of insight into herself she got here. I can only assume there's no clamor for Warner Archives to release GIRL OF THE NIGHT because no one knows what they're missing. Now you know.

GIRL OF THE NIGHT is amazing in that it was produced at a time when such themes as are involved remained taboo. Yet, here it is...and it is a formidable film, with an exquisitely modulated performance by Anne Francis, whose beauty probably prevented her from being considered for some of the powerful roles she could have done easily.John Kerr is excellent as well, especially due to the fact that such a role is played against accepted thought of the period. Who could have envisioned a pimp so good looking. Kerr was a far better actor than his credits indicate -- he had proved his ability on stage AND screen in Tea and Sympathy. Lloyd Nolan, whose abilities grew stronger as he moved away from leads into supporting roles, is superior as the analyst (though his office hours in the same building are slightly askew). Dark and brooding and often brutal, this film would have been an award contender in later years. Now, it remains a wonderful artifact of an era when not everyone was holding back against the formulaic look at the world.

Despite the titillating title, the movie's close to a sleeper. More surprisingly, the production concentrates on the human aspect rather than the sleaze of the title. As the conflicted call girl, Francis turns in an exquisite performance, hitting the right notes without excess. She's neither too sympathetic nor too sappy. Also excellent are the other three principals, especially old pro Nolan as the low-key psychologist. Bobbie (Francis) would like to quit the trade, but is enamored of pimp Larry (Kerr) who's exploiting her with promises of marriage. The Madame, Rowena (Medford), has seen it all and grown understandably cynical, but can't quite quit. She too is tied to her gigolo, the classy Swagger. Thus the movie's about entrapment and how to break the destructive emotional hold.

That opening scene is a grabber, along with the gentleman client who turns out to be something else. We root for Bobbie to break out of the life, develop a sense of own worth and start a new life. Dr, Mitchell is trying to help, but how much he's helping is in doubt since Bobbie bounces back and forth. At times, his counseling seems too low-key to make an impression on the emotional girl. I like the way New York locations are worked tellingly into the storyline, as when Bobbie and her beau experience the liberating openness of Central Park. The ending too is well calibrated to what's gone before.

I recall wandering into the theater in 1960, seduced by the title and the gorgeous Francis. What I got was cutting edge honesty adapted from an actual case history. I expected cheap exploitation; instead I got solid drama, more honest than many an A-production. The 80- minutes may no longer be cutting edge, but the affecting drama remains.

A beautiful call girl. Bobbie (Anne Francis) seeks help from a psychiatrist (Lloyd Nolan) for her on-again-off-again relationship with her pimp (John Kerr) whom she wants to marry.

Kay Medford plays the head of the call girl agency, and Kerr, an alcoholic, keeps pushing her, saying they need money to be married.

When tragedy strikes, Bobbie wants out of the business and tries a regular job. But there's always the lure of her pimp, a man she loves in spite of herself.

This is a pretty wild topic for 1960, and it is well handled. It's a dark and absorbing film as Bobbie works with her doctor to confront her past and figure out why she is so self-destructive.

The film introduces Eileen Fulton as another call girl. She went on to become a huge soap opera star.

Well worth watching. Francis does an excellent job of portraying the vulnerability of Bobbie, as well as her tough outer shell. Kerr plays against type, and Medford is great, particularly in her drunk scene.

In the film "BUtterfield 8," which was released on November 4, 1960, Elizabeth Taylor portrayed a woman of very loose morals, Gloria Wandrous, who was not very far away from being an actual call girl. Based on a 1935 novel by John O'Hara, the film revealed the woman's inner shame, as well as her subsequent visits to a psychiatrist to understand her own behavior. The movie ended tragically for Gloria but nevertheless managed to cop a Best Actress Oscar for its leading lady. But the very next week, another, albeit smaller, film would open, on November 11, that depicted a very similar story but in even more realistic fashion. That film was "Girl of the Night," starring Anne Francis in the role that she would later go on to proclaim was her very favorite of all her many performances. Based on the best-selling clinical expose volume of 1958 entitled "The Call Girl: A Social and Analytic Study" by Dr. Harold Greenwald, the film is a wonderfully adult and realistic account of a true call girl, and shows the depths to which she sinks as well as her tentative attempts to pull herself back to self-respect.

When we first encounter beautiful Bobbie Williams in the film, she is running through the Manhattan streets to her Upper East Side apartment, sobbing after having been brutally beaten by her latest john. A friendly cab driver steers her into the office of a doctor in her building, one Dr. Mitchell (very sympathetically portrayed by Lloyd Nolan), and even though he is not an M.D., but rather a psychotherapist, the two begin seeing each other professionally. Thus, we get to learn something of Bobbie's miserable background, her abandoned childhood, her early molestation, and her descent into prostitution. During the course of the film, we also get to witness the nature of her relationship with her pimp, Larry Taylor (a nicely slimy performance by John Kerr, who had also costarred with Francis in that same year's "The Crowded Sky"), a controlling and manipulative leech of a human being if ever there were one. And we get to also know the madame who is steering business their way, one Rowena Claiborne, played with steely verve by the veteran actress Kay Medford (who was also simultaneously appearing on screen in "BUtterfield 8"!). Ultimately, Dr. Mitchell convinces Bobbie to give up the business and try her hand at independence, and so we get to see the young woman attempting to hold down an office job while simultaneously keeping her past a secret from her female coworkers. But, realistically, Larry's manipulations prove too much to resist, and Bobbie is once again drawn back into the sleazy fold. Still, the film DOES manage to hold out some hope by the time the final credits roll....

"Girl of the Night" has been finely directed, in noirish B&W, by Joseph Cates, who would go on to impress, five years later, with another seedy urban shocker, "Who Killed Teddy Bear?" He gives his leading lady many beautiful close-ups and incorporates any number of stylish touches into his film. But the picture most certainly belongs to the great Anne Francis, who is simply marvelous in the title role. She is given any number of scenes in which to shine and offers up a performance here that is every bit as Oscar worthy as Ms. Taylor's; perhaps more so. Bobbie is hardly a likable character, weak willed and completely lacking in self-respect as she is, but Francis--a very undersung performer, I have always felt--makes us sympathize with her anyway. The actress, 30 years old here and still five years away from what I consider her physical peak (1965's "Honey West," the TV character who, as I have often said, jump-started my puberty!), still looks absolutely gorgeous here. The film also features terrific use of NYC locales, and thus we get to see Bobbie strolling along the East River, walking down the steps of the Met, and strolling around any number of locales in Central Park. (Personally, I love to sit on the exact bench, by the Park's Conservatory Water, where Bobbie once sat and contemplated her future!) "Girl of the Night" offers up any number of impressive scenes, such as the one in which Bobbie and a novice call girl go on a "double date," with disastrous consequences; the one in which Bobbie lays sobbing on Dr. Mitchell's couch while recounting the events of her recent date with a man who happened NOT to be a john; and, of course, the final showdown between Bobbie and Larry, before she walks off into what will hopefully be her new and better life. As compared to "BUtterfield 8," "Girl of the Night" is surely the smaller film, produced on a smaller budget, even though it is a product of the Warners Studio. Still, to my mind, it is the superior picture; not just because it is more honest, realistic and adult, but because it is more stylish, and features a leading-lady performance that really does manage to stun the viewer. I do not begrudge Liz her Oscar for "Who's Afraid of Viriginia Woolf?," but that statuette in 1960 was surely more well deserved by Anne Francis....

This is one of the most perceptive and realistic depictions of psychology in film. The psychological aspects and the psychologist as portrayed by Lloyd Nolan are absolutely spot on. Anne Francis is perfectly cast as a woman truly in need and seeking out some internal insight, and believe me this is a realistic search by her character and not just an overblown cinematic exploitation. Kay Medford gives us quite a screen acting demonstration- she shows you how to act for the movies, she is that good. John Kerr portrays a total louse but the psychologist also endeavors to figure him out for the sake of his patient, Ms. Francis. Major childhood incidents and issues of the two lead characters are explored in a very frank manner, way ahead of the time frame of c1960 era film-making. And its not exploitative- it is all realistic and highly dramatic. Kerr was master of the psychological side of screen acting (we have seen examples of his work in "Tea and Sympathy" and "The Cobweb") and this film showcases Kerr as an even more well-rounded and impactful character.

"Girl of the Night" should be viewed whenever you are ready for a heavy, serious cinematic experience. Not frivolous or titillating, it is just a well conceived, well written and well acted movie.