Midnight

Somewhat stagy drama about a jury foreman (O.P. Heggie) who's very strict on law & order convicting a woman of murder and sending her to the chair. Everyone seems to be upset with the juror, including the press and his family. Of note today only because Humphrey Bogart's in it. Unfortunately he has a small part. It's not a bad film of its kind. Heggie is certainly a quality actor. Top-billed Sidney Fox plays his daughter, whose story is where Bogie fits into things. The rest of the cast is okay, with Henry Hull being the most remarkable. It's a movie that obviously has points to make about capital punishment and the legal system not being fair for all. But it's a bit creaky and drags and kind of falls on its face in the final act. Worth a look for Bogart completists. Also of interest to O.P. Heggie and Henry Hull buffs. If there aren't any, there should be!

I have recently watched this film again. This time I realized that there is a lot in the movie besides just seeing Bogart in one of his early films. This movie makes a very strong statement about capital punishment. Equally as strong is its statement on who you know if you want to beat a rap. The whole movie takes place during a few hours before the scheduled execution of a woman who killed her lover who was going to leave her. Except for the beginning court scenes, and prison scenes, and a couple of scenes where Bogart is in a room somewhere, and when he and Sidney Fox are in his car, the movie takes place at the home of the jury foreman who found the woman guilty. A news reporter gets into the house with a radio and a surprise at the end so that the public can witness what it's like for that foreman as the scheduled execution time approaches. What you may think is a surprise ending really isn't the end at all. Keep watching for the twist involving the district attorney who has his eye on the governorship. This film, like Bogart and Huston's Beat The Devil, is in the public domain.

MIDNIGHT (Universal, 1934), directed by Chester Erskine, based on a stage play, is reproduced as such in this screen adaptation reportedly filmed and produced in New York City. Headed by Sidney Fox, in one of her final screen roles and last for Universal, she plays Stella, the daughter of Edward Weldon, a jury foreman (O. P. Heggie, the actor most famous today for his role as the blind hermit in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)) at a trial where a woman, Ethel Saxon (Helen Flint) is accused of murdering a man who betrayed her. Because Weldon is solely responsible for the verdict that convicts Saxon to be later executed at midnight in the electric chair, his personal life changes dramatically. Weldon is not only hounded by reporters after the trial, particularly one named Nolan (Henry Hull, the future WEREWOLF OF London also in 1935) who manages to be a guest at his home on the night of Saxon's execution, but he must stand firm with his decision regardless. Stella, who had become acquainted with a man at the trial named Gar Boni (Humphrey Bogart), becomes interested in him, unaware that he is a gangster, but learns about him later on in the story when she notices that he carries a gun. When Gar Boni finds himself having to be forced to leave town, Stella wants to go away with him, but he refuses to let her do so, but agrees on meeting her one last time before he goes. On the very night of Ethel Saxon's execution, Stella and Gar Boni have a farewell meeting in his car. As the switch is being pulled on Saxon, a gun shoots off on Gar Boni. Returning home to her father with the gun in her hand, Stella admits to shooting Gar Boni, which puts the old man into a real predicament as to what to do. Should he stand by his own merits and have his own daughter arrested for the crime, or find a way to violate the law and shield her?

Although the story premise is very interesting, especially the subject about a man who feels a murderer must pay the price, only to have his own daughter commit the same kind of crime of passion, MIDNIGHT fails to deliver mainly because of stiff, stagy production with not so convincing dialog. Under capable hands of a more suitable director, for instance, William Wyler, for example, MIDNIGHT might have worked as a tense and moving drama. Sidney Fox, who usually gives a satisfactory performance, seems to be the weakest link here, talking somewhat shaky at times for no reason. She's not very convincing, especially during her emotional scenes. Occasionally the camera shots moving at different angles keeps the pace moving, but not enough to hold one's interest at 73 minutes.

Other capable members of the cast include Margaret Wycherly as Mrs. Weldon; future director Richard Wholf as Stella's brother, Arthur; Lynne Overman and Katherine Wilson as Joe and Ada Biggers, tenants of the Weldon household; Granville Bates, Cora Witherspoon, Henry O'Neill, and Moffatt Johnston as a district attorney who is called to the Weldon home to solve the mystery to Gar Boni's murder.

To capitalize on the success of future film star Humphrey Bogart, MIDNIGHT was later reissued in 1946 as CALL IT MURDER with Bogey being given star billing, the very print available to video cassette and DVD. It's the former Blackhawk Video Company of Davenport, Iowa, that distributed the movie on videotape with it's original "Midnight" title, opening credits headed by Sidney Fox, O. P. Heggie and Henry Hull, with Bogart's name listed eighth in the cast, as initially presented in theaters in 1934.

MIDNIGHT will never be listed in Hollywood's Top Ten Best list, but it's worth viewing for being an early screen appearance of future superstar Humphrey Bogart or a rediscovery of Sidney Fox, whose movie career (mostly at Universal) lasted only three years. Fox and Bogart had worked together earlier in THE BAD SISTER (1931), which not only became Fox's movie debut, but the future two-time Academy Award winning actress, Bette Davis. (***)

As the foreman of the jury you want know, when the deed was done where did the money go, and the answer makes it clear, the lady's going to the chair, it marks the start of the beginning of your woe. On the night when execution's to occur, the tensions high with others you confer, but you've done what was required, the law states this girl must be wired, this is how murders of others is deterred. Then your daughter who's been out returns in stress, a crime of passion is disclosed murder confessed, puts you in a tricky place, the DA's chauffeured to your place, will he help to solve the problem, clean the mess?

This early Bogart movie is only available on DVD/video in a reissue print entitled "Call it Murder". This print lists Bogart above the title instead of 8th in the cast as in the original release, and was obviously resurrected to cash in on Bogart's post 1930's fame. He is adequate in a small part, but the film is a slow-moving filming of a 1930 play that is interesting enough as a moral melodrama, but also mercifully short. The interest lies in the sequences in the courtroom and death chamber, which eschew the stage-bound grouping, and ponderous delivery of the body of the film, and uses the camera in an imaginative and cinematic way. Worth a look as a 30's melodrama, but don't expect a Bogart movie.