Chinatown at Midnight

There's this white guy holding up stores in San Francisco's Chinatown for objets d'art. He prepares by learning Chinese phrases for tourists from a phonograph record. After he steals a valuable vase by the clever ploy of shooting the clerk he sees a young woman in the next room phoning the police, so he shoots her, then gets on the phone and tells the operator, in Chinese, "a robbery at Wing's store, call the police."

Why does he need to learn Chinese to perform stickups in Chinatown? Why does he report the crime to the telephone operator? Why does he do it in Chinese? Did the language course really include the Chinese for "a robbery at Wing's store, call the police"?

If you think the film is going to answer these questions, you are going to be disappointed. And this is only the first few minutes. Nearly all the actions of police and crook throughout the remainder are equally illogical or counterproductive. Moreover the film was so low-budget that long stretches are a silent movie with voice-over narration.

In other words, this could well have served as Mystery Science Theater 3000 fodder. Since it didn't, why might you want to watch it? Old footage of Chinatown and other San Francisco neighborhoods. Brief appearances by two of Charlie Chan's number one (or two or three) sons, Victor Sen Yung and Benson Fong. You might want to laugh, of gag, at Hollywood stereotypes, both positive and negative, of Chinese Americans of that era. There's the usual pretty young Chinese American actress born fifty years too soon. The biggest surprise is the bad guy being played by Hurd Hatfield, just four years removed from the title role in MGM's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Hatfield never again attained Hollywood leading man status, but had a long and successful career. How he sank, even temporarily, to this low ebb is the film's real mystery.

But the main reason to watch is if you're into "so bad it's almost surrealistic." If you're an Ed Wood fan you'll probably enjoy this film.

Its a Sam Katzman produced film so you know its cheap. But that is OK in this case since its a police-procedure black and white movie that doesn't require any kind of budget to be effective. Its a serviceable representative of the raw style police films that were popular in the late 1940's/early 50's.

Hurd Hatfield delivers another of his flawless performances that elevated every project he ever appeared in. Hatfield was a remarkable actor who deserved much more than he received from the Hollywood establishment. He is much admired retrospectively nowadays for his contributions to stage, screen and TV. Also featured is a versatile and familiar actor, as talented as he was gruff, by the name of Tom Powers as the police captain. Numerous other capable and familiar actors do good work here.

This film moves along briskly which helps overcome the low budget and general lack of depth. It evokes the 1949 San Francisco ambiance and is a sincere attempt to produce a worthwhile police action genre piece. Just go along for the fast action (sometimes quite violent) and good acting. You won't be disappointed in "Chinatown at Midnight" if you don't expect depth or anything classic.

Hurd Hatfield is pretty good as the just-doing-what-he's-doing cheap psychopathic hood, and some nice location shooting by Henry Freulich helps, but the usual Sam Katzman cast and editing errors are far too noticeable in this cheap noir set in San Francisco's Chinatown, where the pants pressers have Scottish accents and it may be after midnight at the top of a building, but it's bright mid day on the street.

Other methods that are used to keep production costs down include shooting most of the outdoor scenes wild, subplots that vanish and telling the story through narration. Within its the penny-pinching context, almost everyone pulls off a professional if not particularly distinguished job. You may wish to see this once, but you most likely won't feel the need for a second viewing.

Well-made, typical 1949 B&W programmer from the B picture Sam Katzman unit at Columbia Pictures. Fast paced and no frills. Hurd Hatfield is suitably sinister as the bad guy. The effective music score is all stock. Eleven composers are credited on IMDB. The advent of television in the years to come was soon to end this sort of low-budget fare that all the major studios once made to fill out the double-feature bill. Contract director Seymour Friedman who directed 8 films that year does a more than competent job of keeping this 67 minute thriller moving.

Even though it's a programmer I still expected better with this cast. Actually they do a good job with the limited material. Hurd Hatfield was a very good actor and he does not disappoint as a thief that fences the goods through Jacqueline deWit's interior design shop. There's no motivation for Hurd's behavior - doesn't appear to be money or love. Tom Powers is the police captain and the only guy with brains on the force. Jean Willis has a throw away role but does manage to look good. It doesn't make a lot of sense but it still manages to keep your attention.