Night Life in Reno (1931)

This is an adult comedy for 1931. It hints at adultery, prostitution, and swinging (wife swapping). None of this subject matter could have been handled as openly three years later when the Hayes Moral Code started to be enforced.Jameson Thomas is pretty good as the lead. He made this three years before playing gold-digger King Wesley, the rival to Clark Gable for Claudette Colbert in "It Happened One Night." Dixie Lee who married Bing Crosby and died tragically young at 42 has a small part as the woman who seduces Thomas away from his wife. She is quite radiant. She could have been another Jean Harlow perhaps with some breaks.Clarence Wilson as a shady divorce lawyer named Garrett, Arthur Housman who specialized in playing drunks, as he does here, and Carmelita Garaughty, as a scorned women seeking revenge, liven up the movie with good performances.It is interesting to see a Reno casino in a hotel circa 1931 and see the open prostitution and male and female sexual hunting going on there. Apparently women and men had to wait six weeks to finalize their divorce and they typically sort out new sexual adventures while waiting for the final decree. This is something I would not have known about except for this movie.The direction was quite stagy with mostly long medium and full wide shots. It looks more like a 1921 film than 1931, possibly because of the sensitive new sound equipment which made camera moves difficult. Still, the interesting subject matter overcome this handicap to make the movie quite watchable and generally interesting.

Actually both the crime and mystery angles in this so-named "Crime Classic" are slight. While there is a murder in the story, it occurs very late in the piece. The movie's best moments all happen in the first ten minutes or so, when the lovely Dixie Lee makes her spectacular entrance—although what potential she sees in dull-as-a-doormat Jameson Thomas is open to question. The rest of the movie revolves around a lot of ho-hum footage in which that perennial movie drunk, Arthur Housman, performs his funny-as-watching-ice-melt inebriated act to such wearisome length, it comes as something of a relief when he's suddenly removed from the plot by an unrecognizable, overly face-painted Carmelita Geraghty. Not unexpectedly, director Raymond Cannon handles the bulk of this largely boring, marking-time script with competence but little inspiration. But surprisingly for a Poverty Row effort, production values look quite smart and feature well-dressed studio interiors, peopled with lots of good-looking extras and bit-players.

I found this film in a box set of 50 and wondered what night life in Reno would have been like in 1931. What a wonderful surprise to see Dixie Lee's name playing "the other woman". She didn't make many films after this being too busy as Mrs. Bing Crosby. She is completely ravishing as Dorothy and it is very believable that she could charm away Virginia Valli's husband (although he seems a bit of a stuffed shirt).Unfortunately within 15 minutes she is out of the film and Virginia Valli is on her way to Reno to get a divorce. Her husband, John, quickly follows, hoping to bring about a reconciliation. She has other ideas.He finds a chum (Roy) who wants to set him up with a date for the night. Roy's date turns out to be John's wife. She also turns out to be a big flirt.Virginia Valli is pretty insipid in the main female lead as are the two men (they both looked very similar to each other). Carmelita Geraghty has a small part as Roy's estranged wife Rita and she adds a bit of colour to the film's drabness.Night Life in Reno was a big yawn.

For an early talkie this movie is actually pretty good. The story is told quickly, the movie only bogs in a few places, but it's entertaining and great to see the details of the clothing, cars and norms of the times. The basic storyline is that a husband picks up a hussy at a party, the wife catches them (almost) in the act, and she goes off to Reno to get a divorce (only a 6 week wait in Nevada). Evidently Reno in 1931 was frequented only by sleazy lawyers, heavy drinking, smoking, gambling and sexing people living it up while they waited for their 6 weeks to roll by. I liked the movie, especially since it gets straight to the point on a few of the subplots, instead of drawing them out like many other films do. This is now a public domain movie, and is available for free download from several sites on the internet. I downloaded a 3 gig Mpeg and the quality of the images were excellent, the sound could use some work, but as with many of these pre-Dolby films, nobody is going to go to the expense and trouble of cleaning up the soundtrack for free. On a scale of 1 to 10, judged against all movies, I'd give it a 6. Judged against other movies of it's era, I'd give it an 8.