Six women from the main Allied Nations battling the German-Japanese Axis in WW2 are arrested by the Germans in Shanghai University, under the false accusation they are accomplices of the killing of a German officer in the Hospital. Two Asian women will join the group, and eventually it is revealed that there are at least three underground spies amongst the small group. Some will survive, others will die heroic deaths for their religious beliefs, nationalist ideals, or the sake of humankind. The war in Europe is over, the Japanese are about to surrender after the Nagasaki bombing, but a group of die-hard German Nazis are holding on in Shanghai, protecting an ingenious invention of mass destruction - a cosmic ray generator that is 1000 times more deadly than the A-bomb. Col. Von Meyer is about to pass the secret of the weapon to Col. Noyoma, as Japan is still at war, and will use it to revenge their recent losses. However, Field Marshal Von Runzel arrives with precise orders to the contrary: the Japanese shall not have the secret weapon, for an underground Nazi ring is to use it later in another attempt to destroy all the Allied Nations, and conquer the world in a third Worl War. Von Meyer decides to create a diversion, and to offer the Japanese scientist and officers some "evening entertainment" at the German Officers' Club. Thaler, the female German Officer, is to bring in a number of women - arrested on trumped up charges at the Shanghai University - dress them up, and force them to service the lusty Japanese officers. First, he asks for volunteers, but only the French entertainer Yvette comes forward. The other five women (American, English, Austalian, Russian and Mexican) stubbornly refuse. Then he shouts at them: "I say, naturally you'll all volunteer!" The 16-year-old Australian girl finds her mother as a hard-laborer at the club, they rejoice for a while, but knowing that her pure catholic girl will be ravished that night, Mrs. James kills her daughter instead. Her absence will not be missed much, as two other young women arrive, a Chinese and a Japanese. Soon, the Germans are about to betray the Japanese, but the American is in cahoots with an infiltrated German officer who's really her husband (an OSS spy), the Chinese is trying to make the others believe that Maya is an infiltrated Japanese agent, while Lili herself is seeing a Chinese servant of the Germans in secret, and the women are justly suspicious of Yvette - who is getting fond of the bald-head Colonel Von Meyer… In the end, the American plot is uncovered, the Germans and the Japanese start killing each others, and the fugitive American and Chinese spies. A number of people die in heroic gun-fights. Maya is going to defuse the bombs left in the wine cellar by the escaping Americans, so that the Japanese will get the secret weapon in the end. However Yvette decides to change her loyalty to her country, thinking of what the English girl told her. The two women clash in a desperate fight all over the place, as the fuse is burning - with the future of humankind at stake. This Republican programmer is set in Shanghai during the days between the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender although it was actually filmed in a Mexican hotel. Although the Nazis surrendered a few months before, a few of them are still marching around in full uniform, abducting virginal teenage girls on their way to church from the street and forcing them to serve as 'hostesses' at the German Officers Club. The Nazis are already plotting their return with a dastardly 'cosmic ray' which will definitely win them the third world war in ways the script neglects to explain. The Japs want the Nazis secret weapon but the Nazis don't want to give it to them and keep bombarding them with kidnapped women and alcohol in an attempt to make them forget all about it.<br/><br/>With a title like Women in the Night and a Poverty Row studio providing the finance it's hardly a surprise that this effort is pretty poor, even though it might have been camp fun in the hands of more capable filmmakers. This could almost have been a template for all those whip-wielding Nazi chick exploitation efforts of the 70s. The chief German officer the one who isn't the spy with an undisguised American accent has a thin scar on his left cheek and a monocle glued to his right eye socket. When an underling attempts to stamp out a flaming portrait of Hitler he is scolded by the officer with a fierce, 'you are stamping on ze Fuehrer!' He also has a couple of women working for him who are engaged in a lesbian relationship, although this being the 40s the fact is only hinted at in a couple of lines of dialogue. Les Adams's lengthy summary of this production and its plot would suggest he has seen the film.I beg to differ on a few minor points: The hostesses are not all Anglos though there is one from Angleterre. The U.S.,Mexico,France,China and maybe Australia are also represented. The secret wife of William Henry is not Tala Birell, but Virginia Christine. Tala Birell ,the "Shanghai Mata Hari", received top-billing performing superior to the part. The production was filmed over a thirty day period at the Playa Ensenada Hotel in Mexico utilizing some very attractive interior decor. There are a few outdoor scene but they are minor. The plot is not so sordid but the lesbian relationship between the character's played by Jeans Brooks and Bernadene Hayes is clearly indicated. My 16mm print of this film,formerly owned by William K.Everson, is retitled CAPTURED.Film Classics sold off the rights to the film within two years. WOMEN IN THE NIGHT is a great favortte of Elliot Lavine, esteemed San Francisco programmer,formerly with the Roxie Cinema. He has show the film several times at the Roxie and at the Los Angeles Film School. Surviving cast member Iris Flores (Ride the Pink Horse), who played the Mexican hostess, attended the Los Angeles screening with her extended family several years ago, and I understand it was a warmly enjoyed event.
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330 weeks ago