After Midnight

Norma Shearer is a cigarette girl at a night club, fending off the customers and saving her money. She's walking home in the wee hours when Lawrence Gray steps out of the shadows and offers to sell her the lead pipe he's clenching for $10. She scrambles in her purse and hands him the money. He gives her the pipe and starts to walk away. She conks him on the head and then takes him home to nurse. When he wakes, he's in love and soon enough so is she. But when she caches him with old associates, she concludes he's fallen back into old ways, takes the money she's saved and goes out to have a wicked time. In truth, he was buying a taxicab, part of their plan.

It's good meet cute opening, with two people at te end of their tether. In many ways it reminds me of King Vidor's THE CROWD, but that was a serious drama and this is a romantic comedy that purports to be tough but has a heart of mush. Miss Shearer's sister is flapper Gwen Lee, to whom money flows for no clear reason, and she's pretty good until she has a change of heart.

I have to admit Miss Shearer looks great in the shiny, spangly outfits she wears at the club, but this one depends strictly on her star power, and she isn't given much to do.