Midnight Manhunt

Diamond-thieving gangster Joe Wells winds up dead in a gangster wax museum where the jokers who run it not only recognize him but also happen to be pals with a couple of rival crime reporters. The reporters want the scoop. The cops want the corpse. And the old man just wants to go home because he's "so tired." Leo Gorcey provides a bit of comic relief with malapropisms and a troublesome cigar. The reporters cooperate and betray each other as it becomes convenient, regardless of how many laws they're breaking or how much danger they're in.

The acting is generally good, not great, but the direction is very stagy. With so few sets and so little camera movement, this could easily be a stage play. It's the kind of movie where people tell each other to stop beating their gums and to go soak their heads, offer each other stiff drinks, and light a lot of cigarettes.

The killer's explanation of why he hasn't just fled is ridiculous. And the shenanigans with the corpse are just bizarre.

There's no denying that this B-feature has its flaws, but it's kind of fun to watch. It's a crime drama with plenty of comic relief, with a solid cast that does pretty well with a story that could easily have fallen apart. The production is strictly low-grade, but they tried to make up for it in part with a lot of offbeat sets and dimly-lit scenes.

The story reminds you of Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry", since most of the plot concerns the trouble caused by an inconvenient corpse. It's not, of course, as good as a Hitchcock movie, and its implausible aspects are not masked the way they would be in a better production, but it still gets some decent mileage out of the premise.

Ann Savage does well as a young reporter trying to sort things out. She has the strong presence that she showed in noir features like "Detour", while this time being much more sympathetic. George Zucco strikes an appropriately menacing tone, and Leo Gorcey adds some entertaining comic relief.

This is a good movie to watch when you just want to pass a pleasant hour or so with something entertaining that does not demand careful attention, and when you are prepared not to be too critical. With the right expectations, it actually works pretty well.

Fast-moving mix of comedic nonsense and creepy thick-ear, of the sort popular at the time. Seems everybody's trying to find the corpse of gangster Wells and hold onto it. Competing reporters Willis (gargan) and Gallagher (Savage) are trying to out-scoop one another, that is, when not romancing. At the same time, bad guy Jelke (Zucco) wants to hide the body to cover for his stolen jewels, while the cops are trying to figure things out and poor Miggs just wants some sleep. Complicated? Yes, but in an entertaining, if crowded, programmer style. It's not a whodunit, rather we wait to see how all the conflicting interests will play out.

Apparently Gorcey's on leave from the East Side Kids, while furnishing his impudent brand of fractured English. Now if he can just figure out how to be a cool guy and light a cigarette. The wax museum setting is inventive, but someone should tell director Thomas that wax figures are not limber. Note too how much of the proceedings are filmed in half-light, probably to cover for the budget sets. For fans of statuesque Ann Savage, she shows a different side here from her definitive Detour (1945) spider woman. Happily, she also shows a lot of shapely leg near the end.

Overall, it's a fairly nifty little programmer with a brisk pace and a number of 40's familiar faces.

After Scared Stiff, Ann Savage played the feminine lead in Midnight Manhunt, in which she is relentlessly put down by charmless William Gargan – not one of my favorite leading men by a long chalk. David Lang's script is one of those affairs in which a collection of not overbright characters get themselves involved with murder and missing jewels on the flimsiest of pretexts. As a time filler, this little "B" is overladen with dialogue but still plays with reasonable celerity, thanks more to the sterling efforts of an A-1 support cast led by Leo Gorcey and Charles Halton than to any input from dull, relentlessly plodding, over-emphatic direction from co-producer William C. Thomas (of the Scared Stiff Two-Dollar Bills).

Made in 1945 by Paramount's reliable Pine-Thomas "B" production company, MIDNIGHT MANHUNT is a model of what a bottom-of-the-bill programmer should be. It reminds me of the best PRC productions of the 1940s, with a mix of comedy, mysterious atmosphere, clever plot twists, and a colorful supporting cast. Leo Gorcey is given the same kind of malapropism-laden dialogue he had as a Bowery Boy; George Zucco is menacing and mysterious as only he can be; Ann Savage, of DETOUR fame, is perfect as the brash newspaperwoman; familiar faces such as Ben Welden, Don Beddoe, and Charles Halton pop up; and leading man William Gargan has always been reliable as a square-jawed, tough leading man, both in film and on radio. There's as much comedy as mystery, and both work successfully. The result is an hour of clever entertainment that represents the best 1940s "B-movie" entertainment. The plot involves a missing corpse of a mobster, but it's just something on which to hang a series of comic and mysterious elements. A great way to kill an hour on a rainy day.