"Racing Around a Hotel with Practically Nothing On Can Give a Girl a Terrible Guilt Complex" — All in a Night's Work

Happy Birthday to Shirley MacLaine! This legend turns 87 years old today. Let's celebrate by exploring one of my favourite of her earlier films, All in a Night's Work.  

gif by me

This film was my first introduction to both Shirley MacLaine's earlier work, and to Dean Martin, and I hope, by the end of this deep dive, you'll have an interest in seeing it too!

Let's dive in. 

This is All in a Night's Work. 

We're in sunny Florida!

For less than sunny reasons! 

The hotel detective finds something "remarkable" on the floor: a girl's earring. Given the nature of the scene, they suspect that Colonel Ryder didn't die peacefully in his bed. 

So the authorities call up his next of kin to let him know. This is Tony Ryder, and his uncle has just died. He's so overcome with...this news...that he asks his girlfriend to leave the apartment. Only for her to knock seconds later and remind him that this is her apartment.

The news gets out, naturally, that a tycoon is dead and his nephew is taking the helm of his corporation...

And Tony arrives for his first real day of work. He points out the 50-storey building with his uncle's name on it, and how much people loved him. "How do you follow a man like that?" Tony wonders. "It won't be easy, sir," his chauffeur, Mr. O'Hara, replies.

Tony then heads upstairs to meet with the Board of Directors (many of whom, moments before he entered the room, were wondering if he was even fit for the job). Tony tells them that he barely knew his uncle, but that he's going to do the best he can. 

The board fall over themselves to congratulate him with back-handed compliments like, "Your past reputation is behind you," and "from a useless life to a life of use," and "you may not be much, but you're all we've got." 

Then he asks what their plans are. Tony wants to expand their offerings in Europe by opening up their European branches on schedule, and he took care of a bank loan they'd been trying to secure over the weekend; he wrote down figures about the expansion program, but they're all on receipts and betting notes. 

Anyways, he gets called out of the board meeting to talk with the hotel detective. This is Mr. Lasker, and he has info that Tony should know. As soon as he says he's from the Mirador Hotel, Tony realizes that he's not there to talk about anything he'd gotten up to. 

He asks Tony if he knew about his uncle's girlfriend. He didn't. Apparently the girl was there wearing a Turkish towel, but she beat him to the elevator and got away. His uncle's room was destroyed, in shambles, and his uncle was laying in bed dead...smiling. The hotel manager decided to keep this aspect of the story quiet, for obvious reasons, so Lasker's investigating privately. 

He then shows Tony the earring. It has an inscription on it that means 'good' in Chinese. Lasker says that he can stick around for a while, that the hotel wants to do anything it can to help find the girl. Tony says to charge any investigative needs to research, because he wants to know if this girlfriend is going to show up and try to claim his uncle's fortune.

Then, a few board members walk in and find Tony staring at his uncle's bust. He asks them about romances, and they say that after Tony's aunt died, there was only one love: work. Tony tells them that Col Ryder died with a naked girl in his bedroom and shows them the earring. 

"That young woman has us over a barrel," one board member says. Now they're worried about the bank loan: if any whiff of scandal gets out, the bank will cancel it. Tony says he expects her to show up at his uncle's funeral, but they figure if they hold the funeral before the bank can meet, it'll be fine. So they bump it up and Tony promises that his uncle will "go out in style." 

Enter Shirley MacLaine. She's a researcher at Ryder's and her name is Katie Robbins. She was just on vacation in Palm Springs...

...and she's a little kooky, if you couldn't tell. Shirley MacLaine excelled at playing kooky women in the '50s and '60s. 

As she tells her friend Margie, she did meet one millionaire in Palm Springs, but it wasn't what she'd imagined a meeting to be. "I got a tan and lost an earring," she says. 

She went to Florida to think over her relationship with her fiancée. 

Before she can elaborate, her phone rings. 

It's her boyfriend, Warren. He's so happy she's back from Palm Beach. He says his parents are in town and they can't wait to meet her. "How about the four of us getting together, say, Wednesday night?" Katie agrees, and before he hangs up, he kisses her portrait. 

He's a big shot...veterinarian. 

Just as she's about to dive into her work, she gets summoned upstairs to meet with the board as part of the Union Committee. She notices the large portrait of Col Ryder on the wall and is immediately distracted. While the union reps discuss all their talking points, Katie and Tony subtly chat about water coolers. 

They all start fighting over their points, and Tony suggests that he and Katie meet, as they're the two newest members of the board and the committee, so they'll be less antagonistic towards each other. "Meeting adjourned," he says, after she agrees.

Downstairs in Research, the new man is starting. Marge is smitten. 

Katie returns to the office and finds a nice fur coat waiting for her, one that she doesn't remember ordering ("It must be another Katie Robbins...It must be another Ryder Building...It must be another New York."), and then she reveals to Marge what actually happened in Palm Beach.

"I tried to find things I could do alone. That eliminated just about everything that's any fun," she recalls. She tried to read, but she still gets many gentlemen callers. 

Palm Beach was lovely at night, though. "There I was, trespassing in the garden of an exclusive hotel pretending to be one of the elite," she says. When someone falls into the pool, she rushes into the pool in her lovely chiffon dress ("that cost two whole months without desserts") and saves him. 

Now thoroughly soaked, she rushes in to make sure he's okay. Because he'd been drinking and was chilled, she decided to help him to his room. "That was my first mistake," she says. "My second mistake was playing good Samaritan." She bundled him up before he could get pneumonia, and then realized how cold she was ("I felt like a clam at low tide"), so she took off her dress to get dried off, which was her third mistake.

All she had to switch into was a Turkish towel, and then she realizes that the gentleman, Mr. Hackett, "was playing possum," and was actually fine. 

She fought him off and rushed out to the balcony to escape. 

Making it look easy...

And went through the curtains from the next balcony...

Guess who it was, Katie says. "Frank Sinatra?" Marge guesses. No, Col Ryder! Anyways, she says the coat is a gift from Mr. Hackett and she wants to return it. "I refuse to be obligated to a man who practically drowns himself just to get me up to his room." 

Then Harry, one of the union reps, rushes in with some talking points for lunch. He tells her to mention the pension plan before she finishes her fruit salad; and to order something that takes a long time to cook, like a roast duck, so she can sell him on the seniority plan. 

At lunch, Tony's more interested in flirting than discussing any pension plan. When asked, she tells him she lives at 463 East 76th. "You don't seem like management to me," she further reveals, but he says he worked his way up to the top. "I had the experience but I had to keep proving to the Ryders."

Then he reminds her that she ordered the roast duck, which reminds her: "Seniority rights! An old man is like an old car..." but before she can continue, the roast duck arrives. "Well, I'll just have to talk faster, that's all." 

"What do you say we take the rest of the afternoon off?" he asks. She wants to know why he picked her to negotiate. He says she was the prettiest one in the room and that she's smart, but her brains don't show a bit. She reminds him that she's in research, and she's researched him. "I know you like tall, svelte, sophisticated blondes," she says. 

He asks what she wants to do, she says she wants to do some shopping. "O'Hara will take you anywhere you want to go," he says. Meanwhile, he's going to drop off at the club for a cold shower.

At the store, she wants to return the coat, but the clerks are giving her grief. They don't understand why she'd return it, and they wonder if she'd like the money instead. "All I did was take him up to his room and put him to—" she says, before realizing how that sounds. 

No matter what explanation she gives, it sounds terrible, and she simply asks for a receipt to return it. "This is not what Mr. Hackett had in mind," the clerk says. She offers to pay $5 per week to pay off the coat (it'll take her 45 years to pay it off at that rate, ending in the year 2005). 

Meanwhile, O'Hara's been watching it all through the window, and to him it looks like she just bought a mink coat. He rushes to Tony to tell him this and they try to figure out how she could have paid for it. "Overtime," O'Hara says.

The next day, Katie and Marge arrive for Col Ryder's funeral. Marge notes that her missing earring is back, but Katie says she had to go out and buy a new one: they didn't have any goods, so now she has two lucks ("As long as you keep out of Chinese restaurants," Marge says). 

Katie says that Col Ryder was really a "sensitive, idealistic and very lonely human being," while reading his obituary. Marge says he paid the lowest salaries in town ("that was just his business sense," Katie replies). Turns out Col Ryder was a sensitive poet who expressed raw emotions, but he wouldn't let them publish them in his biography. 

Harry shows up then to rush Katie off to the funeral: as union reps, they have three seats. Katie tries to beg off, saying that she cries at everything, no matter how small. But it's no use, they go over to the funeral. 

Where she proceeds to sob throughout the proceedings (triggered by a eulogy about fruit cakes). "Once I even cried at an auto show," she wails when Harry tells her to calm down. 

She causes a spectacle, with Tony and the board staring at her, even more convinced that she was Col Ryder's girlfriend. Then Tony notices her earring, which matches the one in his hand. Lasker tells the board afterwards that she's the blackmailer, but Tony's reluctant: she doesn't seem the type.

The next day, Katie wants to go up to Tony's office to apologize for her tears at the funeral. The board's having a meeting with Lasker about her whereabouts. "I still can't believe she did it," Tony says. The bank also calls to postpone the meeting, and Tony then wonders again about mistaken identity. "They probably sell ten thousand of these earrings." 

"If she were a blackmailer, she'd be in my office waiting to see me," he says. That's exactly what's happening, his secretary says: Miss Robbins is waiting for him. 

He tries ignoring her for a few minutes, but then urges her to sit. "I know what you must think of me, Mr. Ryder, but honestly I couldn't help what happened," she says. She didn't want to go, she says, but he was the head of the company. 

Tony thinks she's confessing to being Col Ryder's girlfriend; she's actually apologizing about the funeral antics. Then she mentions Col Ryder's poems, but Tony thinks she means poems he wrote to her, and how they should publish them so the world can see who he really was. 

"Miss Robbins, I've had enough of this cat-and-mouse game. We both know why you came up here, right? Now that we both know where we stand," he says. "We'll talk about loyalty." His uncle's reputation is of the utmost importance, and if anything should besmirch it, it would put thousands of people out of work. 

He offers her a pay raise of $200 per week and tells her not to talk to anyone, she promises she won't, but that he should talk, "to a doctor." 

Downstairs, in Research, Marge and Lasker are talking about the job. Marge asks about a wife, and she's pleased to find out that he's single. "I love bowling, it's so healthy," she says, inviting him to bowl with her and Katie and Warren. 

Katie comes in and as Marge tries to sell her on a bowling date, Lasker tries to identify her earrings. He records their conversation about Warren, and how she hasn't set a wedding date yet because she's not convinced his parents like her. She also talks about the "nut upstairs," Tony Ryder. 

Now that they know Katie's engaged, they want to get her married off quickly before she can blackmail them. Tony wonders if maybe Warren's the real blackmailer. "I want to meet this guy, size him up and see what we've got to contend with," he says. Nobody else really thinks this is a possibility, but Tony's just fishing for reasons to snoop into Katie's life. 

So, without further ado, Tony's out on the prowl looking for Dr. Warren Kingsley. 

"He's a doctor, I can fake a stomach ache," Tony tells O'Hara. But then he realizes that Warren's a veterinarian. 

And he needs a pet to take in. So he goes down the street, finds a kid and his dog, and borrows it for a quarter. "Gee, Mister, thanks, but it's not my dog!" the kid says. "You mean it's not your horse," Tony says, picking up the dog.  

Now face to face with Warren, Tony invents a reason for bringing his dog in and a new name for himself: Mr. Heminschlogger. His dog has amnesia, by the way. They were out for a walk and the dog looked up at him and had no recollection of who he was. Oh, and they're both named Julius, because he's sentimental and super close to his dog. 

Warren, by the way, is played by Cliff Robertson. He's a stalwart of movies in this era: Sunday in New York, Gidget, and he won an Oscar in 1968 for his lead role in Charly (based on Flowers for Algernon). 

While Warren examines Julius Jr., Tony snoops around the office. He comes across a picture of Katie and tries to egg him into revealing who she is. He tries to stir up problems by saying he recognizes her from the Copa, but Warren says his family is very straight-laced and would never allow him to marry a showgirl. 

Before they can get much further, the dog's real owner storms in looking for him and Tony has to make a hasty escape. 

Wednesday night arrives, and Katie's rushing around her (chic) apartment getting everything ready for Warren and his parents to arrive. She has a picture of Warren, too, that she pulls out special for the occasion. 

Meet Warren's parents. Katie makes a great impression on "Mother" when Warren's father introduces her as such and she replies that she's happy to meet his mother. Noting Katie's small apartment, Mrs. Kingsley says that they have 30 acres in Kansas ("I could sure use some of those here!"). 

She jumps up to fix drinks: cold martinis. But Warren tells her to make hot chocolates instead. "I'm all out of chocolate," she remembers. So she offers the family olives instead, but nobody wants any, so she sits down eating them herself. 

Now it's time for dinner, but they don't want to go to a cozy French restaurant (that's all they've eaten on their trip). Kingsley Sr. wants to go to a noisy nightclub and asks Katie if she knows of any. All she can think of is La Martinique not that she's ever been there! 

Warren grabs her coat out of the closet and pulls out her mink. "What is it you do for a living?" Mother asks. "Research," Katie replies. "They must pay very well." 

Aaaand, here they are at La Martinique. It's crowded, so they wait in the entry with all the other diners looking for a table. Guess who's already there? Tony! 

He notices Katie and Warren waiting and rushes over to the maître d'.

"You see that girl over there, in the fur coat?" Tony asks him. He wants to ensure that Katie marries Warren, so he instructs the maître d' to take care of her and give her table the best service all night. 

Mother says she wants to leave, as La Martinique isn't her sort of place. Katie agrees, saying the same, just as the maître d' walks up and calls her by name to offer her one of their best tables and a complimentary bottle of champagne. "She must look like a regular," Warren explains. "Who's name also happens to be Miss Robbins?" Mother wonders. 

Katie tries to explain it away as her having won a contest: maybe she's the one millionth diner there? Nobody really buys her explanation, but Katie and Kingsley Sr. drink to the Kansas Veterinary Institute, so all is well, temporarily, at least. 

Having looked after Katie appropriately, Tony and his date make their way to the Stork Club. 

But before they can sneak past, Warren catches a glimpse of Tony, and calls for Heminschlogger. "I'll drink to that," Kingsley Sr. says, downing another glass of champagne. 

Tony turns around and waves at Katie. "Don't be silly, honey," Warren says, telling her it's Mr. Heminschlogger.

"Heminschlogger? That's not Mr. Heminschlogger, that's my boss, Tony Ryder." Warren tells her she's confused, but she's adamant that she wouldn't be confused about a man who gave her a $200/week raise just that morning. 

"Two hundred?!" Mother says.
"A week?" Warren asks.

"I'll drink to that!" Kingsley Sr. says. 

Katie wants to leave and go to another restaurant. Warren asks for a cheque, but the maître d' says there's never a cheque for Miss Robbins. 

Now the party's walking down the street; Katie and Kingsley Sr. ahead, slightly drunken; Warren and Mother walking behind, judging them. 

Anyways, they head directly into the Stork Club, which is full, but is also where...

...Tony and his date have wound up. 

There's no table for them, and Katie says she wouldn't know if they're always busy because she's never been here either.

But Tony pulls the same stunt with the maître d' and gets Katie a table. She's a little too drunk to care this time around, and struts in like she's Queen of the Stork Club. "I'm the ten millionth lady to cross this bridge," she tells a patron. 

At the next board meeting, they're still trying to figure out why the bank loan is delayed; and they're also wondering how their blackmailer's wedding plans are going. Lasker says that his birdies at the Stork Club impressed upon him that Warren and Mother weren't impressed with Katie's antics that night. 

Then Tony finds out that there's been a hitch with their bank loan: they're going to hold off on granting it. "I guess I'm not the best man for this job after all," he tells the board. The bank is checking on a rumour before they'll grant it. Lasker wants Katie to incriminate herself to someone wearing a wire, someone suave and charming, someone like Tony. 

He's reluctant, but then a note comes in for him. It's from Katie, saying that she can't accept the pay raise and that "I suppose next you'll be offering me the Ryder Building lock, stock and magazines, ha ha." 

Now that Tony thinks she has a motive to ask for more money, he agrees to wear the wire somewhere where they'll be alone and she'll really open up: his apartment, later tonight, with some champagne to loosen her tongue. He doesn't want to enjoy this scheme, he tells Lasker, who's overjoyed at the spying.

Katie shows up and she looks very chic in her salmon pink dress and mink coat. "I realize I shouldn't have worn mink to a business meeting but... it's my very first one." He replies, "And I'm sure it won't be your last. Ha ha." 

He stays close to her and they enter this sort of dance as she explains herself. She skipped out on bowling night to join Tony, she says. When she admires one of his Remington paintings, she mentions that her father could never afford an original oil, and it sparks his suspicion. 

"Champagne?" He asks. It'll loosen her tongue, or whet her appetite, he quickly covers up. "Drink up," he says. She admires a portrait of Col Ryder and says that Tony shares some of his features. It dampens the mood slightly. 

Meanwhile, the bowling date is off, because Marge let slip that Katie was going off to meet Tony Ryder at his apartment for business. Warren says you know what kind of business is involved when Tony calls. 

"Suppose we get there and there's nothing going on?" Marge asks. "Oh, there better be," Warren says.

Now totally liquored up, Katie's more talkative. She doesn't want to keep drinking because she's going to bowl afterwards, but she doesn't exactly turn down another glass of champagne either. 

"Now, let's talk business," Tony says. He's going to lay his cards on the table. "Cards? What cards? I thought you wanted to talk business?" Katie asks. 

"You name the figure and I'll make out the cheque," he says. "What do you want?" 

"I want to dance," she replies. "And even though I'm the anchorman, I think you're the better lead." 

"You know, if it weren't for my uncle, we could have met under more pleasant circumstances," he says. "You may kiss me, Mr. Ryder, if you'd like to, it's perfectly alright." And then she plants a kiss on his lips. 

"I shouldn't have done that, I'm sort of engaged," Katie says. Tony wants to show her a few more of his Remingtons upstairs. 

Katie says she only came to Tony's apartment to talk, and he agrees. They'll talk.

Tony: What's done is done. The important thing is that I love you. I didn't wanna fall in love with you, but there it is. I forgive you.

Katie: You're so sweet. Forgive me for what?
Tony: For everything, darling. Florida.
Katie: Florida?
Tony: And the hotel.
Katie: The hotel?
Tony: The rendezvous with my uncle.
Katie: The rendezvous with your uncle?
Tony: I forgive you for the whole ugly scheme. 

Katie: You think I had a rendezvous with your uncle? 

Tony: Forget that. You met my uncle. He was old and lonely. You felt sorry for him. You're a very emotional girl, right? 

Now irate, Katie fills him in on 'what really happened.' She didn't happen to meet Col Ryder, she planned it that way. She says she heard he was loaded and that was enough for her to seek him out. She also has a string of ex-boyfriends and ex-fiancés who couldn't keep her in her accustomed lifestyle.

When she asks Tony why she would've done it, he says, "Blackmail?" 

"When I get through with you, you'll be selling your magazines on a street corner," she threatens. "You can't leave now," Tony yells. He calls his butler to stop her, but then...

...Marge, Lasker and Warren walk in. 

"Don't just stand there, the man insulted me!" she tells Warren.

"I would, but I have to operate in the morning," Warren says. Katie tells them all about Tony's crazy idea, that she's a blackmailer; and Warren takes her away. Then the phone rings, and Marge answers. It's Mr. Dunning. 

"We've got the loan! Know what held it up? The bank thought we'd hired Lasker to follow you!" 

Tony takes off after Katie and Warren to explain everything. 

"I'm going to marry the man I love," Katie says. "Him," she points to Warren. "Not him," she points to Tony," so the women in the elevator are up to speed. 

Tony shows her the tape recorder. "Before you think of marrying this young lady, I think you ought to hear something," Tony says. Then he plays the tape back to where Katie told him he could kiss her.

"I can explain everything, Warren," Katie says. Tony keeps playing sections of tape where she blackmails and threatens Tony. "This could never have happened in Boston," one of the old women says. 

Warren tells Katie he's going to head home. "You don't believe all that silly nonsense, do you?" Katie asks. "No, no...of course not," he says, but then he trails off and leaves without making any further commitments to her.

"I knew it as soon as I met his mother," she says, watching him leave. 

"We'll just have to find you somebody else," Tony tells her. "I don't want somebody else," she says. He tells her that he knew she wasn't a blackmailer; he couldn't fall in love with a blackmailer. She says she never wants to see him again, but first she's going to tell him what happened in Florida.

"There was a man in bed. Your uncle, Col Ryder! I thought he was asleep. I was in and out of there in about five seconds flat, and that must've been where I lost my earring." 

She was looking for a stairwell or an elevator, but took off when the hotel detective started chasing her. 

So that's that. Tony tells her he never believed her for a minute. Then he kisses her. 

"I never want to see you again," Katie says through his kisses.

"You have to, darling, we'll be on our honeymoon," he replies. "You mean, you're asking? Oh, Mr. Ryder!" 

They push the elevator button and go back up to Tony's room, and live happily ever after. 

THE END!

___

In her memoirs, My Lucky Stars, Shirley wrote that she had a tremendous crush on Dean after working with him for years (he'd also starred in one of her earliest films, Artists and Models) and that one day after filming, she went over to his house to confess, though she ultimately never did. 

I love '60s comedies, and this is a real treat to watch. I'd definitely recommend it. Let me know in the comments if you've seen it and if you liked it!