Injustiça

Disregard the mundane title, this is a good movie. The website classifies its genre as a crime/ thriller picture, and it is exactly that. It stars Walter Huston, arguably America's best actor, as a terminally corrupt judge who is interested in self-aggrandizement and self-promotion. Rotten to the core, he victimizes a young couple with a baby he suspects knows something about his lurid after-hours affairs. Huston has never been better when at his worst and runs up against a good guy (in this case, a good judge), who, as they used to say in the 30's, wants to 'get the goods' on him. Good Guy Judge is played by Lewis Stone (Judge Hardy, of Andy Hardy fame).

Things get worse before they get better, and the scenes with Anita Page, as the young wife arrested on a phony charge, are hard to watch. Phillips Holmes plays her husband in one of the best roles of his short career (he was the cowardly weasel in "An American Tragedy").

The movie, made so long ago, is outdated particularly in the resolution of the cases that come before Judge Moffett. Defendants are held and tried at breakneck speed, often with out benefit of counsel. As we know, the wheels of justice grind very slowly nowadays. And everybody has at least one lawyer.

Do yourself a favor and get past the unimaginative title - this film is proof that you can't judge a book by its cover, or a movie by its title.

Made 73 years ago, "Night Court" is a very good, gritty precode about corruption in high places. In this case, it's a judge, played by Walter Huston.

When a young woman, Mary (Anita Page) finds a bankbook left behind by a neighbor, she returns it, and finds herself sentenced to the work house for six months. The money belongs to Judge Moffett (Huston), who, to keep his activities quiet, hangs out in his girlfriend's apartment. The Judge believes that Mary looked at the bankbook and knows where he keeps his money. He sets her up and has her arrested as a prostitute. Her baby is put into care, leaving her poor cab-driver husband (Phillips Holmes) with nothing, and thanks to Moffett's girlfriend, he's even doubting his wife's innocence.

However, he knows in his heart that Mary isn't capable of such a thing and sets out to clear her.

The original was written by Mark Hellinger, a reporter, and producer of "Naked City" in 1948. The story is loosely based on a real-life character.

Though some of the acting is melodramatic, as this was the style of the day, it's still compelling. Walter Huston is terrific, mean as dirt, and Holmes and Page are very sympathetic. Anita Page, about 22 here, worked until she died in 2008! Philips Holmes died in 1942 in a plane crash. For some reason, he reminds me of Tony Goldwyn.

Three other cast members of note: Mary Carlisle (who as of this writing is still alive) as an honest judge's daughter, Lewis Stone as the honest judge, and Jean Hersholt as the building janitor.

Very good and absorbing, though it's stylistically of the time.

Night Court is a gritty drama about graft and corruption in the US courts. Very well acted by a good cast, there are a few too many convenient plot devices but on the whole this is a terrific film.

Walter Huston stars as Judge Moffett, a rotten crooked judge who has a whole network of goons and thugs doing his dirty work. Lewis Stone is Judge Osgood, a crusader trying to pin Huston. Phillips Holmes and Anita Page play a sweet young couple caught up in the corruption. Noel Francis (excellent) plays Huston's cheap moll. Tully Marshall plays a goon. Mary Carlisle has a weird scene as Stone's daughter. John Miljan is a crooked lawyer. Eily Malyon plays a starving woman. Jean Hersholt is the tenement manager. Rafaella Ottiano plays a neighbor.

Huston, Francis, Page, and Holmes are all really good. I've seen Noel Francis in a few other films and wonder why she was not bigger. She's always good. Page has one of her best dramatic roles in this film.

Gritty story, good actors---worth a look!

A great little Pre-Coder with Walter Huston playing a slimeball crooked judge being investigated by a committee headed by honorable judge Lewis Stone. Huston is such a creep in this. He sends an innocent woman to jail on a trumped-up charge, has her husband beaten up, AND has their kid taken away from them. All because he wrongly believed the woman knew something about his crooked activities. What a bastard!

Walter Huston made a lot of interesting movies in the '30s and this is certainly one of them. He does a good job with an evil unconscionable character. Anita Page and Phillips Holmes are great as the young couple Huston sets out to destroy. Jean Hersholt has a small part as a friend of Holmes. This is a really good one for fans of the kind of gritty urban crime dramas that were made in the early '30s. Pretty compelling stuff.

Walter Huston is as always excellent, here as a bad guy. He's a corrupt judge. He moves his girlfriend out of her tony digs and into a working class building. There, she lives next-door to a young cab driver, his wife, and infant. The wife happens to glance at a bankbook of the judge's that the baby took and next thing we know, the adoring young mother is set up on a charge of prostitution.

Phillips Holmes, the cabdriver, at first is devastated hat the young girl he married has turned to the streets. Then he starts to realize that she was framed.

He is tortured by hoods of the judge and other bad guys and then he gets the judge and tortures him till he tells the truth.

This was very shocking for its time. So was "Scarface," made at around the same time. Everyone knows about "Scarface" but "Night Court" is undeservedly unknown. Both are precursors t the very best of film noir.

(The only wrong note -- irrelevant to the plot but somewhat amusing -- is when the always fragile looking Holmes is given line describing himself as a big Palooka.)