Midnight Manhunt

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.

There isn't much to say about this one. It involves a body (which should be decomposing) being dragged around by a series of people. There are a couple of reporters who use absolutely no common sense in the process of trying to use the body to get a scoop. There's Leo Gorcey, playing the Bowery Boys character, with the malapropisms and the general insensitivity. George Zucco is running around, trying to get his hands on the body. Keeping a low profile probably would have protected him, but this doesn't occur to him. Everything is silly and far fetched and probably played well in a theatre on Saturday afternoon as a bit of escapist drivel in the forties.

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.

The sole reason to watch this B-movie is the cast of veteran actors which includes George Zucco and Leo Gorcey, and who give the material more care than it deserves.

The plot concerns the "now we see it, now we don't" game thats played with the corpse of a murdered man. The man was a notorious killer who had been missing for five years before turning up near a wax museum. I won't spoil what happens since despite all the flaws can be quite entertaining if taken on its own terms.

The film suffers from two problems. The first is a cheapness that, while not truly bad, makes the wax museum seem more like a cardboard dive then a real place. The other problem is that the script, while containing funny lines, moves everyone around in a rather awkward manner as if they had to fill out several sections of the movie until its time to move to the next location. Neither problem is deadly, rather they are annoying in the "If they just didn't do that this would be so much better" sort of way.

If you should see this on TV or on the bargain video rack, by all means venture to dive in, since while its not the best of its type, its pretty damn good thanks to the great cast.