Midnight Madness

Clive Brook and Jacqueline Logan both shine in an unexpectedly enjoyable and amusing potboiler which sees her play a gold-digger who gets her come-uppance when her rich new hubbie realises she hasn't married him for love.

Jacqueline Logan wants to marry her boss, diamond broker Walter McGrail. When he asks her to seduce secretive diamond miner Clive Brook for the location of his mine, she reluctantly agrees. Then Brook proposes to her, so she decides to enjoy life as his wealthy wife.

However, Brook overhears her telling her boss off and decides to teach her a lesson. He installs her in a shack beside the pit instead of his mansion and things get off to a rocky start.

It's not just that this "teach 'em a lesson" show lacks the jokes of TAMING OF THE SHREW or that it is shot so obviously cheaply that makes this sixty-minute programmer so unappealing. Miss Logan, who was a beautiful and capable comedienne is directed in an unappealing fashion -- by the time this Petrucchio is halfway through taming his Katherine, you feel sorry for her. Not Miss Logan, who is sullen throughout, until the miraculous ending.

This was one of the last features released by the Demille Picture corporation before Cecil shrugged his shoulders and sold out to Pathe and Joseph Kennedy. Although the company produced some appealing features, the growing public disdain for silent movies and the attending great expense of refurbishing for sound meant the end. RKO Pictures, which grew out of Kennedy's combination also produced some uninspiring pictures like this one, but they had production, distribution and theaters to make money in. Demille didn't. He went to work for MGM for a couple of years and then back to Paramount, where he had the facilities to turn out blockbusters.