Rose de minuit

Midnight Mary (1933)

Wow, you'll never see so many wipe transitions from one scene to the next, which is a big part of how this great little movie moves and moves. Loretta Young is terrific in a common role for the time--a woman who is good at heart getgin in trouble through circumstance and a little too much trust, or plain old willingness. She is surrounded by a mixed and twirling (and large) cast of secondary characters, a couple of them well known such as leading male Franchot Tone.

William Wellman is a director known most of all for being professional. He has no signature style, and unlike say William Wyler or Michael Curtiz, also accused of being professionally style-less, he has no truly amazing films to his name. But boy does have have a dozen really excellent ones. And few duds. In fact, one reason I went out of my way to see this, at a neighbor's house who gets TCM, is because of Wellman.

And also because of Young, who was a starlet and a beauty in her time. If she lacked some on screen spark to make her a superstar, she still had a lovable, solid, convincing presence every time. In a way, she was perfect for Wellman. Tone, in his come and go role, is fine, as is the quirky Andy Devine (the guy with the hoarse, high voice).

Another reason to see this is the freshness it has as a pre-code film. There is a natural acceptance of couples living together (and presumably sleeping together) that is not a salacious part of the film but just makes it true--or at least less artificial. It's a great aspect to many of this era's movies, in some ways my favorite era of all the 1930s, as great as the later and purposely artificial screwball comedies truly are.

What will hold this back at all for some viewers is a lack of total polish and storytelling finesse (filming and editing, as well as writing). It isn't that films in 1933 were always plagued by small flaws like these, but even the masterpieces of the time feel a little raw in spots. This is a charm, a benefit, if you look at it that way. Don't expect "Casablanca" or even "It Happened One Night" (from the next year) and you'll really enjoy this. The plot is familiar, the acting routine, the lighting bright (high key). But it's really fun and well done and a fast ride. Do it.

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!

This is a seldom-discussed but highly significant title in the pre-code canon, as it delineates the compromises a pretty and (originally) moral young woman must make to extricate herself from poverty during the depression. Overall, it's a predictable melodrama, very typical of its period, and the fact that Wild Bill Wellman was for some reason working at MGM for this one tends to stultify the brashness that was his trademark in his early years at Warners. Nonetheless, the tricky editing is very Warners-like and keeps the story moving at a rapid pace, particularly in the jaw-dropping montage where the eponymous character loses her virginity. Most importantly, the script is very frank about sex and absolutely cynical about American society at the time. The most notorious scene is all innuendo -- in order to distract her gangster paramour, Mary inaudibly whispers in his ear, obviously relating in quite some detail the pleasures she will endow him with if only he comes to bed with her immediately. Loretta Young is luminous as always and Ricardo Cortez has a nice time with his role as a confident hoodlum who knows he has her on a string. As for Franchot Tone and Grady Sutton...

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!