Midnight Shadow

Midnight Shadow (1939)

** (out of 4)

Margaret Wilson (Frances Redd) has a couple men wanting her affections but after her father shows off an oil well to them, he's murdered. Now the two men are suspects so the daughter hires a private detective to figure out who the killer is.

MIDNIGHT SHADOW stands out because of its all black cast but sadly outside of this there's really nothing too special here. This film follows the "old dark house" theme that ran thought hundreds of films from this period but the majority of the horror elements are watered down in favor of the detective story, which is obviously watered down even more by the attempt at laughter. As with many films, this one goes for laughs as the detective and his assistant share insults and comic falls but this doesn't really work.

I was surprised to see how good the majority of the lead performances were. This includes Redd who was quite believable in the role of the daughter. There are some weak performances to be found in smaller parts but nothing too damaging to the film. I also thought the actual mystery was well-done and at least keeps you guessing a little. MIDNIGHT SHADOW is a fair thriller that will mainly appeal to those wanting to see an example of an all black cast.

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.

A mysterious showman/charlatan arrives at a small town and immediately starts courting a girl whose father owns a valuable deed for land in an oil field. The father is murdered in the night by an unknown assassin and two bungling detectives get on the trail of the murderer.

Midnight Shadow is entirely negligible as a mystery film. It's not very involving and it displays the usual deficiencies that these old poverty row films tend to like an abundance of stupid and unnecessary comedy relief. While its resolution was particularly poor and abrupt (it didn't really explain very clearly why the guilty party was actually guilty). The acting is also below par, even for these types of movies, with at least one actor appearing to be reading his lines off cue cards. However, this movie is best appreciated for reasons beyond all of the above. It's interesting as one of the films of the 30's made specifically for the black movie theatres. Hence the all-black cast. It also explains the strange opening text that tells audiences of lands in the American Deep South that are self-governed entirely by and for black people! This of course goes some way to explaining to audiences why everybody is black, including law enforcers, lawyers and detectives. Naturally, this is completely historically inaccurate! But what the hey – it's the movies, right?

Overall, this is not a good film but it's quite interesting historically and it has a very short running time so its deficiencies aren't really that painful to bear.

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.