For a "Night of January 16th," this was pretty lousy.
For a totally separate story just coincidentally carrying the same name, it was pretty good.
The original, a play by Ayn Rand, was entirely a courtroom drama, and the jurors were picked, randomly, from the audience. And reportedly the verdicts varied from night to night.
This movie, though, had a few of the same character names from the original and not much else.
After a murder, the victim's private secretary, played by Ellen Drew, is accused and the plot is basically she and the character played by Robert Preston trying to find the real murderer.
Along the way is some silliness -- "Old MacDonald" is sung twice, for reasons known only to the script-writer -- drunks, sloppy cops, and an air-headed female attractively played by Alice White.
Quite a good cast doesn't have a lot to do, except for Phil Nazzaro, who was famous for his double-talk patter. That script-writer gave him a good part.
All in all "The Night of January 16th" is not-especially-memorable fun. There is a mediocre print at YouTube, not, when I watched, further marred by commercial interruption so it really is free to watch.
I wonder if Ayn Rand herself would have watched. And for how long?
For a totally separate story just coincidentally carrying the same name, it was pretty good.
The original, a play by Ayn Rand, was entirely a courtroom drama, and the jurors were picked, randomly, from the audience. And reportedly the verdicts varied from night to night.
This movie, though, had a few of the same character names from the original and not much else.
After a murder, the victim's private secretary, played by Ellen Drew, is accused and the plot is basically she and the character played by Robert Preston trying to find the real murderer.
Along the way is some silliness -- "Old MacDonald" is sung twice, for reasons known only to the script-writer -- drunks, sloppy cops, and an air-headed female attractively played by Alice White.
Quite a good cast doesn't have a lot to do, except for Phil Nazzaro, who was famous for his double-talk patter. That script-writer gave him a good part.
All in all "The Night of January 16th" is not-especially-memorable fun. There is a mediocre print at YouTube, not, when I watched, further marred by commercial interruption so it really is free to watch.
I wonder if Ayn Rand herself would have watched. And for how long?