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.

Midnight Mary is pre-code bliss par excellence! Loretta Young stars as a down on her luck young woman who finds herself in situations that she never would've found herself in later in her career! From the opening courtroom scenes where Mary finds herself reminiscing about her past, we are taken on a roller coaster ride through the years to find out how she came to be where she is now! Mary isn't a bad girl, she's just had a lot of bad luck and made unfortunate choices in consequence.

Loretta has tons of chemistry with her co-stars Ricardo Cortez (yummy) and wise-cracking, adorable Una Merkel, who has a really great philosophical drunk scene in the movie! There are many scenes that wouldn't have made it past the censors later on, such as the one at the kitchen table where Loretta and Franchot Tone discuss a subject that's on a lot of people's minds a lot of the time. And towards the end of the movie, there's a scene with Mary trying to seduce Leo, who responds by licking her fingers as she strokes his face.

This is a great little morality play and a comment on the hard times encountered during the Depression Era, when many people were forced into hard choices they might never have made otherwise.

All the cast is great, including Franchot Tone as the suave lawyer who befriends and saves Mary and Andy Devine as his loud-mouthed friend who's along for the ride.

Midnight Mary really is Pre-Code Bliss!

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!

Interesting drama about a young woman named Mary Martin (played by Loretta Young), on trial for murder, who awaits her verdict and remembers back to her past leading up to this crime. From childhood rummaging through garbage at the dump, to being placed in a "house of correction" as a teenager when she is unjustly accused of stealing a pocketbook, to unknowingly playing lookout for a bunch of crooks pulling a job, Mary really is a good girl - she's just had a life that went from one bad break to another, it seems. Unable to find a real job, she ends up a gangster's moll and, along with his gang of hoodlums, she's now dressing to the nines in satin gown, skullcap, and fur coat and assisting them with crimes - but when she meets a handsome, rich playboy (Franchot Tone) one night while out on a "job" with her gang, she asks him to help her get away from this life of crime.

This film is really interesting, well-edited and fast-paced, with compelling story that completely held my interest, and a really great performance by Loretta Young who really makes this film. Una Merkel adds to the mix as Mary's gal pal Bun, and Andy Devine is fun as Franchot Tone's goofy sidekick. Franchot Tone, by the way, looks extremely handsome in this with top hat, white tie, and tails (oh, my), Loretta Young is very beautiful, as usual, and there is just tons of chemistry between the two of them in their romantic scenes. Watch for those kisses - wow!

Midnight Mary is the story of a girl who grows up poor, gets involved with people on the wrong side of the tracks, and tries to get out. The film opens and closes with Mary in a court room awaiting the verdict in her trial for murder.

Loretta Young plays Mary; Young is absolutely beautiful and proves to be a great actress in all of her scenes.

Ricardo Cortez plays her gangster boyfriend well enough. He is appropriately sinister at times and average in others.

Una Merkel plays Mary's best friend, a cute and funny smart-cookie type.

Franchot Tone is standout in this film, especially in his romantic scenes in which the kisses are long and passionate, the looks are meaningful, and the chemistry is hot and thick. Otherwise, Tone is sweet and lovable as always.

This film was beautifully photographed and employed great costuming resembling both late 1920s and early 30s styles.

This film was made before the production code that censored everything that came out of Hollywood, so it utilizes many racy scenes. One occurs when Young and Tone blatantly talk about the possibility of sex, another when the far from stiff kisses last longer than three seconds, another when Young whispers dirty things into Cortez's ear, and still another when a girl gets pregnant out of wedlock. There is also some abuse shown.

The ending of the film is very satisfying and concludes a great film.