Midnight Phantom

This bizarrely paced thriller gets it all wrong for some odd reason. Instead of killing off the person who needs to be killed (and we find out early that that person is going to be killed, the way he sets himself and the characters up) and then creating a mystery leading to the solving of the case, the film introduces us to characters, sets up ridiculous some ridiculous family dramas, and THEN gets around to the murder in the final 15 minutes or so, and goes on to solve it in that time! As usual, it's the guy you least expect that does the deed, but I had my suspicions from the start! Anyways, the bad guy is executed, and one of the characters says, "Gee!" to that. I agree. This movie is fun to watch though for the bizarre story structure though, and the pacing makes it quite entertaining.

A new police chief is murdered and almost all of the suspects are cops.

This is a very talky movie. People talk and talk and talk and talk and it gets dull very quickly since this seems to be more about talk than action. A case in point is that most of the first third of this film is the police chief talking to various members of the police force about how he wants them to change their corrupt or incompetent ways or else he'll fire them or lock them up. While it sets up the suspects nicely it doesn't do much for keeping interest. Eventually Reginald Denny shows up playing a professor of criminology and things pick up as we at last get to the murder. The second half of the film is a battle between Denny's science vs the tried and true police methods. Its a bit more interesting than whats gone before but its still long winded.

Not a bad film as such its just not very compelling. There are too many characters and too much talk and it really just doesn't grab you the way it should. Is it worth seeing? If you like old mysteries its worth a shot but I'd see if you can borrow a copy off a friend since its not worth renting or purchasing since you'll probably watch it just once.

It's difficult to know who to recommend this poverty row obscurity to. While it's technically a mystery, it barely functions as such due to the way in which it's structured. For the first three-quarters of the film you could be forgiven for wondering where exactly this movie is going. We are introduced to an array of characters who work for a police chief. We are made aware that all of these people have a grudge of sorts against the man. But, aside from a brief car chase involving cops and robbers, the narrative is basically a lot of melodrama; that is until, with fifteen minutes of the movie remaining, the chief is murdered in a darkened room populated by all of the cast members. So the mystery only lasts for about ten minutes before the killer is unmasked and we are treated to the very pointless epilogue. It has to be said, however, that the amazingly inept plot structure is the only thing that stands out about this film.

Midnight Phantom is almost a movie about nothing. Even the title is ridiculously misleading and meaningless. It clocks in at just under an hour so it is at least mercifully short. I can only recommend this to poverty row completists, although I would be surprised if there is such a thing.

With no plot continuity, half of the movie comprised of stock footage, and coupled with high school drama club performances, Midnight Phantom (which has no relevance to the story) is an unmitigated disaster. I gave it a 2 rating only because of Reginald Denny from The Shadow movies fame.

1935's "Midnight Phantom" was a rare non-Western from Reliable Pictures Corporation, which lasted five years and produced 48 titles overall. Top billing goes to Reginald Denny, playing a famed criminologist who just happens to be conducting a lecture on that subject when the local police chief (James G. Farley) gets knocked off. Among the roomful of officers under suspicion, we have his daughter's fiancée, whose late brother was killed in the process of committing a crime. Then when the police surgeon claims to have discovered the murder method, he immediately keels over dead! Unfortunately, the first murder doesn't occur until the 45 minute mark of this 59 minute feature, way too much exposition for even the sturdiest movie buff. Claudia Dell's promising career never really took off, making her final appearance in a 1944 Monogram Charlie Chan, "Black Magic." In the end, Reginald Denny was perfectly cast, coming off a similar role in James Whale's sumptuous "Remember Last Night?"