NIGHT WAITRESS (1936)

At Torre's Fish Palace on the San Francisco waterfront, waitress Helen Roberts (Margot Grahame) has just resumed her job after being put on probation (for vague involvement in an unspecified crime which we assume couldn't have been too bad because she has that put-upon, innocent, good-girl look). She's trying to avoid trouble, but trouble finds her in the person of Martin Rhodes (Gordon Jones), a handsome schooner captain who used to run bootleg booze but now stays within the law, more or less. He's waiting for a phone call about a job from a man named Rigo. The call comes, but it comes from the man's brother, Mario. Rigo was tortured to death by men trying to find a cargo of smuggled gold, and now Mario is trying to get that information to Martin. Mario says he'll meet Martin at the restaurant some evening, but the evening he arrives, he's too early. When Mario realizes that a couple of thugs have followed him, he draws a crude map on a napkin and asks Helen to give it to Martin. Mario is killed, and Helen is now sought by the crooks. When a thug breaks into Helen's apartment, he gets the napkin but in trying to escape, he falls to his death from the window. Now the cops want Helen as well, so she winds up hiding out with Martin on his schooner and together they try to figure out where the gold is.

This B-film is a little rough around the edges but essentially likable, partly due to the male lead and partly to a good story that's not too simple and not too complicated. The twists and turns of the plot are easy to follow but not always predictable. I like Jones quite a bit, though here, I had to put aside some discomfort with the way his character harasses the waitress—he's not mean or crude, but he is jackassishly aggressive in the first half of the film as he flirts with this woman who is clearly vulnerable and would rather be left alone. But he strips down to his underwear near the end, and he sings a cute novelty song, "The Monkeys Have No Tails in Zamboanga," so all is forgiven. Margot Grahame (pictured with Jones) was a fairly big name in England but never quite made it in Hollywood—here, she's attractive but colorless. The familiar faces of Marc Lawrence, Billy Gilbert and Don Barry show up, as does Anthony Quinn in one of his first film roles as a violent thug. Solid if unremarkable B-crime film. [TCM]