Midnight Mary

Ordinarily I do not tolerate soap operas well, and "Midnight Mary" is certainly one of these. Commonly referred to as a 'woman's picture', a soap is generally long on talk and unwind at ice-cutter speed. But this picture is different, more of a melodrama with good pacing and acting throughout, and with a thoroughly absorbing screenplay as well.

Director/Social Commentator William Wellman hits the mark with an MGM production that has a gritty Warner Bros. flavor to it. It is Loretta Young's picture and she delivers, with help from a surprisingly strong performance from Ricardo Cortez and from the dependable Franchot Tone. Mention should be made of the effective, haunting theme music by Dr. Wm. Axt, who supervised many MGM scores in the '30's.

Still very worthwhile although somewhat dated nowadays, its essential social message is intact. Well done all around. I gave it a rating of 8 and felt the film earned every bit of it.

A ravishingly beautiful 20-year-old Loretta Young is "Midnight Mary" in this 1933 melodrama directed by William Wellman. The film also stars Ricardo Cortez, Franchot Tone, and Una Merkel. Young, on trial for murder of Cortez character, a gangster, is waiting for the jury to come in. She tells her story in flashback. Down on her luck, recently out of prison, she meets Cortez, becomes his girl and gets the easy life. One night, during a shooting, the wealthy Tone helps her escape. After she receives secretarial training, he gets her a job in his law firm. But her past catches up with her.

Loretta Young is stunning and her clothes are fantastic. She gives a very good performance. Since it's a pre-code drama, there's talk of sex, suggestive scenes, and the women get slapped around.

Very entertaining and absorbing, with Young a class act all the way.

This Review is worth an 11 for the gowns, 8 for the rest. Loretta in Adrian's clothes was a knockout...I have seen this movie twice on that wonderful TCM and that beaded skullcap hat still makes me marvel...it takes a pretty face to pull that one off. Story is interesting enough but the actors were really perfect for this big little movie. Ricardo Cortez was at his sexy handsome smarmiest..Franchot Tone was at his great kind, rich and wimpiest and sweet Loretta held the whole shebang together and I cannot imagine anyone thinking/saying she wasn't right for the part. Plus, if clothes make the man then clothes really make the woman... Now about the story...Loretta of got a few bum raps along the way, love, etc., but wait, just spend 75 minutes and judge for yourself.

Wow! What a movie! Definitely one of the best Pre-Codes I've seen. Swiftly paced, perfectly edited, with Loretta Young at her most beautiful and giving one of her most believable and honest performances.

After seeing many of Loretta's films from the early 1930s, now I think that she gave her best performances in this period of time. There is a quality of freshness and naturalness, that gives much more truth to Loretta's portrayals in the early 1930s than to her interpretations of the late 1930s and 1940s, with few exceptions. Besides, those huge, beautiful eyes of hers, that smile, those apple cheeks, that slender figure so perfect for those early 1930s gowns, never looked better than in this period.

Here she impersonates a doomed girl, who's known all the ugly aspects of life; the film begins when she's being tried for murder. The movie is told via-flashbacks and depicts how she got into this situation. It's so strange that this picture was produced by MGM; it could have been perfectly done at Warner Brothers. Well, the director, William Wellman, had been making lots of films on the Warner lot (Loretta as well), so he must have put much of the Warner's "Touch" and "mood" into it, perfectly blending it with MGM's gloss and top production values.

Ricardo Cortez is excellent as the "aparently" suave gangster in love with Loretta and Franchot Tone is aptly cast as a society lawyer who falls for her. An excellent cast of supporting actors include Una Merkel, Warren Hymer, Martha Sleeper and those usual reliable butlers: Robert Greig and Halliwell Hobbes.

I found this film so entertaining, so timeless, so modern in many ways. Pre-Code Fans don't dare to miss it!

Midnight Mary (1934)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Famous Pre-Code has Loretta Young playing the title character, a woman who always finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. After a stint inside a reform school she winds up on the streets without a job but is taken under the wing of a gangster (Ricardo Cortez). She eventually tries to go straight with the help of a lawyer (Franchot Tone) but soon the gangster wants him dead. Young is one of my favorite actresses and there's no question this here is one of her most famous films but to me the story is really lacking and not too original. It really seems like MGM wanted to throw Young into the sex/vamp role but they didn't put too much thought into the screenplay. The movie certainly isn't bad but at the same time it's not the greatest that it could have been. The biggest issue with Young's vamp here is that she never does anything wrong. She's a good girl from head to toe so there's no point in trying to push her off as the vamp. What makes this film work so well are the incredibly strong performances from the three leads. Young is very sexy and believable in her role. Cortez even manages to deliver a strong performance but the scene stealer has to be Tone. Andy Devine and Una Merkel have supporting roles. To me this film works best as a love story because in heart that's exactly what it is. Throw in the sexy wardrobes of Young mixed with Wellman's direction and you've got a pretty good film that's worth watching.