Midnight Menace

Cabal of armament manufacturers conspire to wreck a peace conference and start a war for profit and personal reasons. Standing in their way is a pair of newspaper reporters who stumble upon the plot when a fellow reporter is killed to prevent him telling all. Very good fast moving thriller that feels some of the German crime films from the lat 1920's merged with British thrillers of the period. Its almost Hitchcockian in many ways and one could easily imagine the great director directing it himself. The plot is slightly science fictiony with radio controlled planes and large machines but they are merely window dressing as hero and heroine try to get to the bottom of the plot. While not quite perfect its is a nice dark little thriller perfect for a rainy night.

Not surprising since it used a plot all of the above used often, and just relocated it to England. And used glory-days-long-gone Charles Farrell as the star...who quickly followed it up with like fare from America's Poverty Row.

This Grosevenor Film Productions production ( proving you didn't need a Gower Gulch address to compete in this genre)was released in the U.S. as "Bombs Over London" and dealt with the machinations of a band or armament manufacturers who are trying to plunge Europe in war. (Europe was already there.)

Fritz Kortner chews the scenery as a scheming political tool of the armament ring. Charles Farrell is a newspaper cartoonist and Margaret Vyner a reporter on the same newspaper. Kortner, representing a European nation, with a "G" as the first letter (Gruevilnaz, or something), brings about a deliberate breach among various nations at a Peace Conference (held in the War Room), and, on top of that, he has employed (from the Position Wanted section of the newspaper)an inventor who has a radio-controlled system that directs bombing planes and they plan to bomb London.

Farrell gets involved after Vyner's brother, hot on the trail of the armament ring, is murdered, and uncovers the plot. But...is it too late?