Murder at Midnight

This is prototypical whodunit. It has atmosphere, interesting characters with personality flying all over the place, hard nut police detectives, most of whom aren't very smart, and that air of snobbery. The film begins with a shooting during a game of charades, where a gun, supposedly holding blanks, proves the undoing of one of the characters, a man who changed his will at the last moment because he sensed danger. A loudmouth detective shows up on the scene and treats everyone like dirt. He shouts in their faces and tries to intimidate. The people at the mansion are upper crust and resent his invasions. Mixed in are a nervous wreck, a cute maid, a stodgy butler, a matriarch, and several other figures who could have participated. There are also some interesting dealings with the telephone (which I won't reveal). The pacing is pretty good and the ending is acceptable. One character who cracked me up was a policeman who spent the whole movie guarding people and eating peanuts in the shell. There's a great scene where the butler brings him a large bowl because he has been tossing the shells on the floor. The cop, puts the peanuts that were in his pocket, into the bowl, then continues to throw the peanut shells on the floor. It's a nice little story and worth watching.

Occasionally clever little early 30s multiple-murder mystery, with a killer stalking the Kennedy household and knocking off a half dozen victims. The cops don't seem especially perturbed by the continual corpses lying around and aren't very good at getting to the bottom of the mystery. Lots of telephone cord cutting and such; good example of how the telephone became the mystery writer's best friend.

The plot concerns a letter fingering the killer, which comes to light after a game of charades goes bad (after seeing this and The Death Kiss, I have some advice: do not agree to be shot by a gun filled with blanks during the 1930s). The head of the household, maid, the butler, and who-knows-who-else also fall victim to the clever murderer bent on getting his hands on the letter.

The acting is stagy and old-fashioned, but occasionally sharp and witty, and Alice White as the house maid Millie is a doe-eye peach. An absence of music makes this seem rather duller than it should be. It's okay if you like the genre and era, but it's not something to seek out.

Do you like 'whodunnits'? The other kind is a 'cat-and-mouse' picture, wherein the killer is known from the outset. I don't like those but am a sucker for a 'whodunnit', especially a well made one. "Murder at Midnight" is a whodunnit although a primitive one, but it holds your interest throughout - but just barely at times due to the ice-cutter pacing. Was thrown off somewhat by the lack of a music track, something we have become used to as the sound era wore on.

Hadn't seen Alice White before but will look for her from now on - cute as the proverbial button. Thought Aileen Pringle was a dead ringer for Ruth Chatterton, and that the film was helped a great deal by several distinguished actors in tuxedos. Makes you think what a shame it is that men rarely wear tuxes anymore except at weddings.

I'm trying to get through my gift box of old mysteries on DVD and I am always appreciative when I come to one worth the time to view it, as opposed to scads of 'quota quickies' and poorly made B's. I gave "Murder at Midnight a rating of 7, because it is a cut above.

The mystery story in "Murder at Midnight" is an interesting one, with some good plot turns, plenty of suspects, and a competition between the police and some amateur sleuths to see who can solve the case first. The story is good enough to make up for the rest of the production, which is routine or somewhat weak in several other respects.

The story starts cleverly, with a murder committed in the course of a party game, and the scenario is well-written, maintaining the tension and interest all the way to the finale. There are clues and suspects in abundance, and most of the details fit together pretty well. As another reviewer has observed, it gives you a fair chance to figure things out yourself. If the rest of the production had been up to the level of the story, this might have been one of the classics of its era.

Some of its weaknesses are simply the common ones of the early 1930s: the irregular pacing and the distracting background, which unfortunately keep the script's rather snappy dialogue from working better. It also could have been improved if more attention had been given to the atmosphere, and with a somewhat stronger cast. The best performance comes from Clara Blandick as a cantankerous aunt, but the rest of the cast is mostly undistinguished, although Aileen Pringle and Alice White are both quite pleasant too look at.

Nevertheless, it's still well worth seeing, at least if you enjoy movies of its era, because the story really is a good one for its genre. With some improvements, it could have been quite good.

The opening shots of this film are blurry with undefined shapes and objects, however suddenly a light is switched on and the change in lighting brings about sharper and more detailed images. The lighting techniques in the opening sequence are an indication of things to come in the film. It is an early experiment with lighting and varying the contrast levels from shot to shot. In some shots there are plenty of grey hues and details are easy to make out, while in other shots the faces and clothes of the characters are blown out to white. The blowing out to white is used most effectively when Aileen Pringle is interrogated by investigations - as her facial features can hardly be made out, it is hard for us as viewers to tell whether or not she is lying.

However, other than interesting lighting and camera techniques, the rest of the film is pretty flat. The mystery at the heart of the film is intriguing, but it is never really involving since the film lacks strong character development. Robert Elliott plays his hard-boiled detective as a one-dimensional stereotype too, which makes it hard to want to root for him and his desire to solve the mystery at hand. As an early sound film, the audio quality is not too great, with a bit too much atmospheric sound and perhaps some music could have helped. However, the timing of when a character says "and he fired" followed by a bang, and the timing between dialling for the police and a sudden siren sound, show that some thought was indeed put into what the film was going to sound like it. It is a flawed film, but other than a blatantly contrived ending it makes quite satisfactory viewing, and the lighting work is simply fascinating.