Night Club Scandal (1937) DVD-R

Starring John Barrymore, Lynne Overman, Louise Campbell, Charles
Bickford, Harvey Stephens, J. Carrol Naish, Elizabeth Patterson
Directed by Ralph Murphy

Print: black/white
Runtime: 70 min.
Genre: drama
Print Quality: B

A remake of 1932's Guilty as Hell, Night Club Scandal also borrows a page
from 1934's Murder at the Vanities by depicting the "friendly adversary"
relationship between a reporter (Lynne Overman) and a cop (Charles
Bickford). Top-billed John Barrymore plays a respectable doctor married
to a nightclub singer (Evelyn Brent), who murders his wife and frames the
victim's lover for the crime. Overman and Bickford spot holes in
Barrymore's story, bringing him to justice by Reel Seven. The murder plot
is standard stuff, but the main attraction of Night Club Scandal is the
aggressively masculine love/hate byplay between tipsy Lynne Overman
and flint-eyed Charles Bickford. The best moment occurs at the end,
when the wide-eyed ingenue (Louise Campbell) doesn't marry the fellow
the audience expects her to!