The Night Court

Starring: William Demarest, Joyzelle Joyner, Dottie Lewis, Ronald R. Rondell
Directed by: Bryan Foy
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Short, Comedy, Musical
Length: 10 minutes
1927

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Nightclub performers must do their acts for a judge in a courtroom.

Review:

Tim: I have to say, I didn't care for The Night Court. I'm usually pretty excited to see these older short films, as they capture something of a world long since passed. You always watch them with an eye towards the context. A film like this wouldn't be made in 2021, so you have to watch it through the 1927 lens. Even doing my best, I wasn't a fan of this short film.

The whole movie feels completely forced. It seems that the intent was to give a series of performers a chance to perform on film. The story is concocted purely for this purpose. None of the story actually makes sense. Nightclub performers are requested to perform their acts in a courtroom for a judge to determine something, I don't remember. Whether they should go to jail or be released? Honestly, it made no sense and I didn't care. It's pretty obvious from the very beginning that the judge is going to release them. There's zero tension here. The story doesn't matter, it's barely there and only exists to move to the next performer. I might have been more interested if any of the performers were especially memorable or entertaining. They were not. The short is only 10 minutes long, but I think I lost interest within the first 90-120 seconds. I kind of let the film wash over me. It's tough, because the movie might have had good intentions, but it was constructed the wrong way. It shouldn't have presented this flimsy story if it didn't care about the story. It hurts the movie. There's never any question that the movie just wants to film performers performing and everything else is just a weak excuse to have some kind of narrative. I wasn't buying it.

Maybe someday I'll return to The Night Court and give it a second chance. It's funny to me that I watched this film and felt so disengaged and impatient and the movie is only 10 minutes long. It felt a lot longer to me. It's not a bad film, but it's not very enjoyable nor entertaining. When you feel like you're wasting your time, 10 minutes feels much, much longer.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Bernado De Pace: The Wizard of the Mandolin, Van and Schenck 'The Pennant Winning Battery of Songland'