The main storyline concerns a crooked nightclub manager who is robbing customers and cheating the owner, complicated by two murders and a romantic triangle.
Produced by John Golden and staged by Winchell Smith, it starred Norman Foster, Ruth Lyons, Averell Harris, Maurice Freeman, and Gail DeHart.
Lead Supporting Featured Bit players and Walk-ons Chris Miller, manager of the Little Casino nightclub has been cheating the proprietor, Ben Fischer, for some time.
[12] The local reviewer gave the storyline and identified some cast members, but limited their opinions to general praise for the production.
[13] Bainbridge agreed to pay for the round-trip cost of transporting the company from Atlantic City to Minneapolis, where the play would open at his Metropolitan Theatre on August 26, 1928.
[14] Merle Posner wrote in his review that the theatre for the unusual Sunday opening night was "only partially filled", but the audience gave an "enthusiastic reception" to the play.
[6] He also reported that author Dunning was making notes throughout the performance, and that Ruth Lyons as Buddy Miles would be more convincing with less refinement.
[4] Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times, who subtitled his review 'Foiling the Palukas',[fn 2] labelled Night Hostess as a "farrago", and said "It might well be the end of the Broadway formula in low-life melodrama".
[4] Arthur Pollock in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle thought the only innovation in the play was to attempt an underworld melodrama without any salacious language, otherwise there was "no originality in either scene or dialogue".