Midnight Shadow

The production values that were available even to studios like PRC on porverty row amusing were sure not available to this film Midnight Shadow. This is the story of a murder committed in an all black community in Oklahoma and its main asset is a pair of bumbling correspondence school detectives who actually solve the case quite by accident.

Buck Woods and Richard Bates play the would be sleuths and I don't mind saying they reminded me a bit of Abbott&Costello in their film Who Done It. Imagine if this studio had the facilities of Universal Studios that A&C enjoyed.

I can't rate Midnight Shadow higher, but it's still worth a look.

Another film from Sack Amusement Company, a distribution company that dealt with the black movie theatre circuit in the 30s and 40s.

A very forgettable mystery that had to have served as a B Movie, supporting a bigger name movie. The acting is generally of the obviously memorized and recited lines variety. By the time the mystery is solved most of the audience won't care, as the mystery has little suspense, the "comedy" falls flat and the ending is so lackluster.

A few notes on this one though. This kind of trivia is what maakes these movies interesting to me beyond the plots. John Criner, the man who played Prince Alihabad had a similar role as a travelling show Doctor in "The Duke Is Tops', he played Doctor Dorando there and it is a better showcase for his talent. Ruby Dandridge, who played Mrs. Lingley, was the mother of Dorothy Dandridge. This movie has the look of a mystery series, had "Lingley and Lightfoot" made a better movie, there may have been more. But Junior Lingley was little more than a bumbler mincing about, and Lightfoot's acting seemed to be majorly the wide-eyed scared black man role.

These "race" movies had such low budgets that it is amazing they did as much as they did with what they had to work with. There are other better movies out there in the genre, if this is the first movie you see of this type, don't be discouraged, there are more out there of far better quality.

Back in the 1920s to the mid-1950s, many movie theaters in America were segregated or were white only. Because of this, a black film industry sprang up--black theaters as well as movies featuring all-black casts for these theaters. Not surprisingly, these all-black productions were extremely low-budget...and were almost always inferior to the Hollywood movies. But, they can be, on occasion, quite interesting and worth your time. Is "Midnight Shadow" one of these productions worth your time?

The story begins with a phony prince meeting with a girl's parents. Her father is a bit dim and begins talking about all the money his daughter will receive when she gets married...and it's obvious that the crook is only interested in her for the money. Will Margaret find out the truth before it's too late or is this jerk destined to run away with her riches? And, exactly HOW does this man plan on bilking her anyway?

The acting is, frankly, pretty terrible. The parents can barely deliver their lines...but it's also true of the main characters as well...with the faux prince and his girlfriend acting as if they'd never even seen a movie nor knew anything about acting in one....and they are incredibly low energy and flat. Some black actors of the day, such as Spencer Williams and Mantan Moreland could really act...but not the folks in this film.

Overall, a pretty typical low-budgeted film that is about as bad as its current 3.2 on IMDB would indicate. Amateurish and only a curiosity and not much else.

1st watched 9/15/2001 - 4 out of 10(Dir-George Randol): Mostly badly acted mystery involving the murder of a man in a black community. Besides the antics of a couple of funny detectives this is otherwise a very uninteresting film. It does have some merit because it was a complete black production from an age where blacks were only given small and very predictable characters in the white-owned film world of the day. This film wouldn't have broken the barrier even if it was made by a big budget film maker because of the very simple story. I am glad that this has been put to video just for a historical reason if for nothing else and to give us a different perspective on this culture in these times.

Whoever wrote this mystery must have shrunk from embarrassment. You will notice there is no screenwriter in the credits, not even an uncredited one. After a reasonable start, including the suspense of having an intruder enter the bedroom of an elderly sleeping couple, the movie goes downhill rapidly. And it has one of the most anticlimactic endings for a mystery I have ever seen. I would like to say you may enjoy the comedy, but I can't. There is a limit of ineptness beyond which a character comes off just stupid rather than funny. Richard Bates plays this kind of a character. He dresses in a Sherlock Holmes hat and pipe and looks for fingerprints with his magnifying glass. Except he looks everywhere except at the crime scene. That's the level of comedy in this movie. His partner, Buck Woods, isn't quite as stupid, but comes close. Their comedy relief was really bad. About the only thing I liked was seeing Ruby Dandridge (the mother of Dorothy Dandridge) in her first film. There was no musical entertainment in the film, quite unusual for a "race" film made for black audiences, since that was often a staple of such films.