Mezzanotte a San Francisco

While "The Midnight Story" is not among Tony Curtis' more famous films, it is among his better films. The fact that it's a story told without spectacle (such as in "The Vikings") might just account for it being lesser-known...but it deserves to be seen and appreciated.

Joe Martini (Curtis) is a cop who is incredibly upset following the brutal murder of a local priest. This kindly man had helped Joe when he lost his family and Joe is determined to investigate the murder on his own when the detectives can find no leads. So he takes a leave of absence and follows up his one very tenuous lead...a man he saw at the funeral who seemed more affected by the priest's death than anyone else. So, Joe befriends Sylvio (Gilbert Roland) and tries to slowly and casually investigate Sylvio's actions the night of the murder. However, something unexpected happens...Sylvio is so taken with his new 'friend' that he invites Joe to live with him and his family. Now, Joe's in a bind...as he's practically family with the man who MIGHT have killed the priest!

The acting is very good in this one and Gilbert Roland and Tony Curtis put in really nice performances. Additionally, the story is well written--with a dandy finale. Well worth your time.

Tony Curtis stars in "The Midnight Story" from 1957. The film also featured Gilbert Roland, Marisa Pavan, Argentina Brunetti, J. C. Flippen, and Herb Vigran.

When a beloved priest is killed in San Francisco, Joe Martini (Curtis) takes it very hard, as the priest was in charge of an orphanage where Martini once lived. At the funeral, he spots a man, Sylvio (Roland) who seems extremely agitated over the priest's death. He decides to investigate.

When he can't get permission from his superiors, Joe resigns and infiltrates himself into Sylvio's life, even to the point of staying at his house. He falls in love with Anna (Pavan) who is Sylvio's cousin and lives in the house.

However, in trying to check Sylvio's alibi for the night the priest was killed, he's not able to verify it. When he finally is, he proposes to Anna. At their engagement party, his old boss has some bad news for him.

I wasn't as enthusiastic about this film as others on IMDb. I found it very overwrought, even taking into account that the acting style back then was more overt.

Curtis, however, was wonderful as a determined young man, one of warmth and charm, as his emotions get in the way while attempting to learn the truth about his newfound friend.

Curtis was one of four hot Hollywood hunks in the '50s along with fellow Universal star Rock Hudson, 20th Century Fox's Robert Wagner, and Warner's Tab Hunter. Of the four, I feel Tony was the best actor - certainly the only one with stage experience - and exhibited more range than the others.

This is a pretty good movie that will keep you interested.

The Midnight Story has Tony Curtis starring as a young motorcycle cop who was raised in an orphanage and the priest who ran it is knifed to death at the midnight hour. As this priest was the single most important figure in his life Curtis wants to get reassigned to homicide to help catch the killer. But he doesn't get reassigned so Curtis quits the San Francisco PD and goes to work on his own. Someone in that Fisherman's Wharf community did the deed and he'll find who it is.

His suspicions fall on Gilbert Roland playing his usual happy go lucky self as one of the fisherman, but Roland is a man who is hiding something obviously.

Curtis's efforts to ingratiate himself with Roland work only too well. He gets a job with him and even boards with his family. He grows to like him and even more important he falls for Marisa Pavan who is Roland's cousin who also boards with him.

Coming right before Tony's breakthrough role in Sweet Smell Of Success, The Midnight Story is a small indication of what Curtis was capable of. He turns in a fine job as the troubled and conflicted cop who wants more than anything to believe Roland is not capable of killing a priest. The real star of the film though is Roland. This part is one of the best he ever did on film.

Some other outstanding performances are Argentina Brunetti as Roland's sister, Ted DeCorsia and Jay C. Flippen as Curtis's police superiors and one that is brief but memorable is Peggy Maley as a potential witness who could finger someone else for the murder. Her scene with Curtis, DeCorsia, Flippen, and Russ Conway as the cops questioning here is quite memorable.

In his memoir Tony Curtis said he liked this film very much. So will you if you see it.

One night in San Francisco's seedy North Beach neighborhood, a beloved priest is attacked in an alley and stabbed to death. A traffic cop (Tony Curtis), who grew up in the orphanage the priest ran, takes the murder particularly hard but sees it as his chance to advance to the homicide squad. At the funeral, he spots a man (Gilbert Roland) so shaken that his rosary has cut into his hand, drawing blood. Curtis follows his hunch that this man knows something about the murder.

Posing as a young fisherman fallen on hard times, he gets a job in Roland's crab shack on Fisherman's Wharf. Next, he's invited to live in the home Roland shares with his mother and his cousin (Marisa Pavan – Pier Angeli's twin sister). And for about half the movie, the noirish plot about the murder gets shoved onto the back burner like a kettle of red sauce in favor of an Italian-ethnic family drama (Curtis falls for Pavan, who plays hard to get, and so forth).

Though it seems as if director Joseph Pevney has lost track of the suspense story, he hasn't – he interweaves it into the family dynamics. When Curtis finds out information that he thinks exonerates Roland, he's so relieved he asks Pavan to marry him. But at the engagement party, he discovers that Roland's alibi is full of holes....

Falling late in the noir cycle, The Midnight Story recalls in its theme of a priest's killing (and in its San Francisco setting) the haunting little noir Red Light, of 1949. Red Light was pretty hard-core, while The Midnight Story is watered down with heart-warming vignettes. Still, it's more than an honorable try.

Curtis doesn't make the role as unforgettable as Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success the same year, but he doesn't embarrass himself, either. Roland comes close to overdoing the lusty fisherman, but instinctively pulls short. Pavan, however, looks and acts like Natalie Wood as Maria in West Side Story. Special mention, however, ought to go to Jay C. Flippen, as Curtis' `rabbi' in the police department; one of the unsung stalwarts of the noir cycle, he brightens the screen whenever he turns up because he's sure to polish up a little gem of a performance.

Just saw this in a double bill with Six Bridges To Cross (another Tony Curtis noir from the same era, also directed by Joseph Pevney) as part of the American Cinematheque Film Noir Festival. What a buried treasure! Pevney was wonderful at rich characterization and the portrayal of the Italian family in this story is nothing less than one of the most heartwarming and charming in cinematic history! Argentina is priceless as the matriarch, outdoing Olympia Dukakis' similar role in Moonstruck. Well-defined roles, clever psychological dynamics and a downright pithy script lift this far above the average crime melodrama, which you might otherwise suspect this would be based on its seemingly standard "cop goes against system to avenge death of his friend" plotline. However, there is a lot more going on in this picture and the performances are uniformly excellent. More importantly, while there is mucho complexity inviting lots of analytical "academic flapdoodle," this is at the heart a highly entertaining piece which lays out a challenging conflict and finds a way to nimbly avoid the cliches and build to an ultimately satisfying solution. If you are a fan of noir or the versatile Tony Curtis, don't miss the chance to see Curtis shine in the straight man cop role for once... If you just like a good crime drama, you'll also want to check this neglected diamond in the rough!