The Midnight Warning

Reviewing this movie is a bit tricky. First, it was made in 1932, and we can't expect too much. The acting is stilted, and the dialogue.... is sometimes.... a bit stiff. Then, part of the detective's success depends on his super-duper binocular-glasses, which is more than a bit goofy. They look like something out of the back of a comic book, circa 1955. Between the set-up and the climax scene at the end, it drags, and I found myself pausing it and browsing web sites for a while.

The end of the action, as mentioned in some other reviews, is actually pretty harrowing, if you imagine watching it in a dark movie theatre in 1932. The scene seems to come out of nowhere in this otherwise standard genre film. If the rest of the film had been up to that standard, it would have been a much better production.

Finally, the denouement is a surprising twist - it doesn't work out anything like you'd expect in the genre. Let's just say it's far more ambiguous than Hollywood usually produced. I'd say it's worth watching if you're a fan of the genre and films of the early talkie era. Just don't expect too much - I don't know how another reviewer gave this nine stars. Different strokes, I guess.

"After a young couple and the woman's brother check into a hotel, the brother turns up missing. While no one at the hotel seems to know where the man is, let alone acknowledge he was even there, the woman decides to hire an investigator to look into the matter. The investigator, his assistant and the young couple find some strange circumstances at the hotel, which lead them to a shocking discovery," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Ah… it's the old vanishing relative plot. This one moves along quite nicely, thanks to writer John Thomas Neville beginning his version from an interesting angle: hotel patron Hooper Atchley (as Steven Walcott) calls upon an old friend, investigator William Boyd (as William Cornish), after finding a human ear bone in his fireplace. Then, Mr. Atchley collapses… The unraveling mystery is engaging; and, the movie works as a filmed stage play.

Columbia Pictures model Claudia Dell (as Enid Van Buren) gets to play frightened in a mortuary, and Robert Harron's brother John ("Johnny" Harron, as Erich) has a good expositional scene explaining his involvement in the intrigue. Forgotten film veteran Phillips Smalley (as Dr. Bronson) is another asset. "Midnight Warning" obviously needs Alfred Hitchcock's direction, and a more satisfying conclusion (see "The Lady Vanishes").

***** Midnight Warning (11/15/32) Spencer Gordon Bennet ~ William Stage Boyd, Claudia Dell, John Harron

Someone is firing a gun into a hotel suite to frighten guests. But who, and why? You'll never guess the "why" part. Set almost entirely indoors, "Midnight Warning" could easily be a stage play. Which isn't altogether bad. Though the script is indeed somewhat talky, there is a secondary mystery that gives the story thematic depth.

The script is not well written. An inspector that can read suspects' lips expedites the plot but his talent isn't believable as used here. The good guys always manage to be at the right place at the right time, a time-worn cliché. And as the plot proceeds, some of the male characters blend together, so they don't stand out well as unique or interesting. The morgue sequence near the end is just downright tacky.

Yet despite the script's overall poor quality, the story's underlying premise is effective, as the ending dialogue communicates a twist that puts the entire story into perspective. I had never before seen such a plot twist.

The worst element is the film's production. B&W cinematography is awful. The visuals are so dark there were scenes that I couldn't distinguish characters from a solid black background; all I could see were their white shirts. Annoying splotches appear in a few scenes, suggesting inferior film stock. And the crackling and static that overlaid the dialogue rendered poor sound quality. Of course one needs to take into account the inferior technology that existed in those early days of film-making. Production design, film direction, and acting are below average.

The underlying premise of "Midnight Warning" is thought provoking and interesting. But viewers will need to lower their expectations due to a substandard plot and dreadful production values.

Supposedly based on a real incident which occurred at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. This film fits into the "Pre-Code" genre, only because the "baddies" are not brought to "justice" at the end. The acting is pretty good, although I have to smile when I remember that William "Stage" Boyd was shortly afterwards involved in a famous Hollywood sex scandal, which temporarily ruined the career of William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd when his photograph was erroneously printed in a newspaper along with the scandal story; I can understand why reporters thought it was the "Hoppy" Boyd & not the "Stage" Boyd! A bit too talky at times, but an interesting film nonetheless.

A sister & brother check into a posh hotel. Shortly thereafter, the brother is missing, & despite the sister's inquiries, no one admits to ever having seen the man. Meanwhile, a sniper shoots bullets through the window of the room that the brother & sister stayed in. Is there any connection between these events?

There's a little mystery, a little terror, some spookish pranks, and an eerie mortuary scene that is quite effective in delivering scares, however I found the rest of the film quite average and flat at times and a little confusing - but the denouement at the end for the "strange" going-ons is surprising and offbeat.