WOMEN IN THE NIGHT (1948)

It's the last days of World War II, after the defeat of Nazi Germany and the dropping of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki. In a Shanghai hospital which has been converted into a Japanese officers club, Nazi colonel Von Meyer leads a small group of Germans working with the Japanese on a "cosmic death ray" more powerful than the A-bomb. He is waiting for the arrival of Professor Kunioshi and Colonel Noyama to hand over to them the plans for the death ray, but with Japan's defeat all but final, Von Meyer is ordered to withhold the plans. He brings a group of female prisoners to the building to use them as "entertainment" for the officers, German and Japanese. Among the women: the French Yvette (who is only too glad to flirt with anyone and is resented by the others), the American reporter Claire, the Australian Sheila, the Chinese Li Ling (who is secretly a member of the underground, as is her boyfriend, a delivery boy who smuggles things in for the women), the shy religious virgin Helen (whose mother works as a laundress at the club), and the mysterious Eurasian Maya. Over the course of the next few nights, the women are dolled up and paraded and pimped before the officers. Some oblige, some use their wiles to engage in subversion, and one would rather die than engage in forced sex. One of the officers, Von Arnheim, is actually an American OSS agent (and husband of Claire's) and helps oversee a plan to blow the club and its officers up. But will their secret plans be betrayed? 

This B-film is introduced explicitly as a postwar propaganda tale, to raise outrage against the treatment of female prisoners--treated as prostitutes--and to propose that such acts be considered war crimes. But that element of  the film is ultimately downplayed in favor of war melodrama, and as such, it works fairly well. There are perhaps a few too many characters and plotlines crammed in, though its running time of 100 minutes is unusually generous for a B-movie of the era, and I was unsure of some details--the character of Maya (Jean Brooks) was an enigma to me the whole time. The film is not really gritty enough for its subject matter, but it’s well paced and interesting. Performances are par for the B-film course. Best are Brooks, Virginia Christine (Claire), Philip Ahn (Kunioshi), Richard Loo (Noyama) and William Henry (Arnheim). Occupying an unusual place in wartime films, I recommend this. Pictured are Virginia Christine as Claire and Gordon Richards as the chief Nazi. [YouTube]