clanciai Everything is lousy about this production except the story. The direction is despicable, the actors can't act, the result of the editing is a mutilation, and the happy ending is a joke. However, most of the ladies are quite good and convincing enough, and it's their film. It's their story this film is here to tell, and it's a great story involving many stories. Not only are several of these girls brave freedom fighters who don't hesitate to wage their lives when there is no other choice, but there are a number of great tragedies hinted by their stories, the most important of which is the mother who finds her daughter. Forget about the Japanese and German officers, they are all caricatures, and you can see that the actors themselves don't believe in the almost ludicrous roles they are playing. This is a women's drama, and that's all that matters.Also the music is very well made and gives at least a gilded frame to something that could have been an engaging masterpiece, if the direction and the male actors had been better. The fact is, that there were rests of German officer cliques stranded in China (here Shanghai) and elsewhere after the surrender of Germany and before the Japanese final surrender who still believed in their absurd Reich, many escaped alive out of Germany and immediately started planning for the next Reich, - of course, they did not succeed, as they also fail in this film, but their plans and visions were enough alive to keep cliques like this active to the last.Pity that such a good story should be made such a bad film of, but then at least you can take care of and mind what's memorable in it, and it is never wrong to point out the women's cause.

MartinHafer By today's standards, this film is an amazingly racist anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese film--the sort of jingoistic stuff they made during the war as propaganda. So, despite it having a release date of 1948, I strongly suspect it was actually made in 1945--just as the war ended. And, because it was no longer as timely, it was shelved and re-tooled--giving it a bizarro plot that was quite confusing.The film begins with a rather intense and preachy intro about how the Nazis and Japanese brutalized women during the war (such as the Korean 'comfort women'). While this is quite true, the film creates a silly fictionalized piece that frankly was very stupid. A bunch of women (representing, naturally, the various allied countries--though what were they doing in China?!) were kidnapped by the Nazis after the European war ended (this was never addressed in the film--but it's set in August, 1945--and the Nazis surrendered in May, 1945!!). The second atomic bomb has been dropped on Nagasaki and it's only a couple days until the war is over--yet these Nazis want to somehow pimp out these women to the Japanese in order to help them create a NEW Nazi regime(???)! And to do this, the Germans have some secret for a new 'cosmic ray'!!! As for the Germans, they are hilarious. They are way over the top in their stereotypical behaviors and some of them look and sound about as German as the Frito Bandito! One of them, it just so happens, is really an agent for the Americans (really--who would have suspected this guy with a California accent?!) and one of these women turns out to be his old wife!!! What are the odds?! Not surprisingly, the ladies' accents also come and go--showing that these 'actresses' really needed a lot more coaching--or talent! The Japanese, though seemingly more civilized (and consistent with accents), down deep are all just a bunch of mad slobbering rapists----just like their German allies. But again, you must remind yourself that there WAS no Nazi Germany at this time and none of this made any sense! The bottom line is that this is a stupid film thanks to a dreadful script--filled with about as much subtlety as a brick upside your skull! Had it come out during the war, at least it would have had some propaganda value. But, it is a terrible film--one that is so bad that you might enjoy it just for its comedy value! It reminds me of the expression "it's so bad that it's good"! If you like this sort of trash, also try "The First Yank in Tokyo"--a very lurid and silly film to say the least.

JoeytheBrit 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.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.

dbborroughs Pure exploitation film about Nazi's in China nominally to help the Japanese try to win the war and to abuse women. Actually the Nazi's in Asia have come up with a secret weapon that could have helped the Fatherland had they gotten it home before defeat, however Germany has fallen and the Japanese want it only the Germans don't want to give it up. Lurid exploitation film that is supposedly based on actual case files. Other than some note cards about nasty experiments I doubt very highly that any of what we see happened. More unbelievable spy drama mixed with and excuse to abuse women this is the precursor of the Nazi prison camp films of the early 1970's, though with out the nudity and truly graphic violence. I'm not sure what I think of the film. Taken for what it is its not a bad film, but I can't say its the sort of thing that I would willingly watch again since there is a rather mean spiritedness to it all. If you watch it you probably will walk away liking it, but you may hate yourself in the morning