Midnight Manhunt

This movie has all of the charm that makes old movies fun. Tough newspaper reporters compete with one another as they deal with a murdering villain and an arrogant police detective. I cannot recall seeing Ann Savage in anything else, but right away I liked her. She had the look and presence that should have made her a bigger star. Although she gets second billing in the credits, I think she is the star that really pushes the plot the most. Leo Gorcey adds a fun comedy element that keeps the movie bouncing along. The action starts at the very beginning and keeps building until the end. All the events take place in one night as the different characters are involved with finding, moving, hiding, and searching for a mobster's corpse. For what appears to be a B movie, the whole movie keeps up a steady pace for plot twists. If you love movies of the 40's in general this movie will be a pleaser.

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.

***Major Spoilers*** With free-lance hit man Jelke, George Zucco, tracking down his quarry diamond thief Peter Bernett, George E. Stone, from Uruguay South America to a mid-town Manhattan hotel he surprises and guns him down when he answers the door. Taking $250,000.00 in diamonds that Barnett had on him Jelke goes to call a cab to have Barnett's body taken and later dumped, by Jelke, in the East River.

There's also an alert for a New York gangster Joe Wells who's been either dead or on the lamb for five years and the state is willing to pay $5,000.00 to find and prove who he is, dead or alive. You see both Peter Barnett & Joe Wells are one and the same person. Wells badly hurt from being shot by Jelke struggles to his feet and staggers across the street from his hotel to the Last Gangster Wax Museum and collapses and dies.

Later girl reporter Sue Gallagher, Ann Savage, finds the dead Wells on the museum staircase and hides it so that she can later get the reward for proving that the elusive Joe Wells case has finally been solved. Unknown to her and the police and Sue's friends Jelke has a lot more to gain if Joe Wells stays lost then they do in having him found. Humorous crime/drama about a stiff, Joe Wells, who stiffed everyone looking for him by getting stiffed and hidden in the car trunk of police let.Max Hurley,Don Beddoe, who's been in charge of finding the stiff for five years.

George Zucco seems too refined and sophisticated to be a hoodlum in the movie, he's much better playing mad doctors and scientists. There's also that expert in the proper use of diction in the English language Leo Gorcey, Clutch Tracy, in the film playing an attendant at the wax museum who shows us how he can magically make a lighted cigar butt last for over an hour which was the length of the movie.

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.

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.