Tom Walls directed and starred in a series of light social comedies written by Ben Travers. These were hugely successful in the 1920s (and for some years beyond that decade), and are collectively known as the Aldwych farces, in honour of the West End theatre that was Walls's and Travers's base camp.
The main action of 'A Night Like This' takes place in a London nightclub which is a front for gangsters. (I can't believe that any London nightclub would be a front for gangsters ... not with respectable businessmen like Ron and Reggie Kray making sure that all the nightclub owners stay honest!) Cora Mellish (Winifred Shotter) is a nightclub dancer who has run up a substantial gambling debt. To avoid having her legs broken (and losing her livelihood) she puts up a valuable necklace as security. Unfortunately, Cora doesn't own the necklace: it was loaned to her by her boyfriend Aubrey (Claude Hulbert), but he doesn't own it either; it actually belongs to his very fearsome aunt (Norma Varden), a battle-axe who would put several of Bertie Wooster's aunts to shame.
Into this confusion comes undercover detective Mike Mahoney, played by Walls. While solving the case, he falls in love with Cora. This sets up a triangle with Hulbert, but -- this being an Aldwych farce -- there's never any doubt as to who will get the girl.
A large factor in the success of the Aldwych farces was their predictability: audiences wanted stock characters and stock situations, and got what they expected. Here we have thick-ear gangsters, henpecked husbands, silly-ass toffs, and of course a pompous git (the amusing Robertson Hare) losing his trousers, thus paving the way for Brian Rix and the Whitehall farces. As a bonus, we get Al Bowlly as the leader of the nightclub orchestra, all of them playing in fine form. The only cast member I didn't like was Mary Brrough (the British film industry's equivalent to Hollywood's Maud Eburne) as a shrieking shrew. (Please fix the IMDb spell- check so I can spell 'Brrough' properly.)
The entire film is directed very much like a stage play, even to the extent of having the cast take a curtain call at the end! However, I actually enjoyed this, as it gave me some notion of what it must have been like to see one of these farces at the Aldwych Theatre in George V's day. I'll rate 'A Night Like This' 8 out of 10. Well done all round!
