The Midnight Warning

It all starts with detective William 'Stage' Boyd and Doctor Hooper Atchley looking at a human tympanus bone discovered in a hotel room. Atchley collapses. When the hotel doctor comes in, he suggests something wrong with Atchley's liver. In actuality, Atchley has been shot through a window.

Although the editing by Byron Robinson avoids the endless shots that director Spencer Gordon Bennett was so fond of, this is a poor movie. It's 35 minutes into this 61-minute movie before anything approaching the actual mystery is even discussed, because every time a new character enters the scene, everything that has gone before has to be recapitulated to him or her. It's dialogue heavy as a result, with some good performers standing around speaking in emphatic tones. The cast includes Claudia Dell, Phillips Smalley, and Lloyd Ingraham. None of them succeed in making this short second feature moving at any speed.

Supposedly based on a real incident which occurred at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. This film fits into the "Pre-Code" genre, only because the "baddies" are not brought to "justice" at the end. The acting is pretty good, although I have to smile when I remember that William "Stage" Boyd was shortly afterwards involved in a famous Hollywood sex scandal, which temporarily ruined the career of William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd when his photograph was erroneously printed in a newspaper along with the scandal story; I can understand why reporters thought it was the "Hoppy" Boyd & not the "Stage" Boyd! A bit too talky at times, but an interesting film nonetheless.

The film's premise is pretty good, with some surprise twist and unusual ideas along the way and one of these unusual things about it is that this is basically a murder mystery without an actual murder. Right when his famous inspector friend comes to pay him a visit, a doctor staying in a fancy hotel gets shot through the window. He survives with the bullet only scratching his face, but the inspector takes the case with the doctor playing sidekick and they soon discover, that there is something really fishy going on at the hotel. A gorgeous blonde and his boyfriend gets involved later on and there are some unexpected twists and a rather spooky scene at a morgue to keep us intrigued.

It is not a great movie by any means, but it could be a fun little time-passer with good pacing and some interesting characters, but... then we get to the ending, that just ruins it all. The explanation just does not make any sense whatsoever, instead of wrapping up loose ends it reveals gaping plot holes and the inspector and doctor's reaction is just unrealistic and unbelievably irresponsible. Too bad.

"Eyes of Mystery" is actually a rerelease title for 1932's "Midnight Warning," from Mayfair Pictures Corporation, an independent outfit that produced or distributed nearly 40 titles in seven years. William 'Stage' Boyd is back in detective form ("Murder by the Clock"), supported by Poverty Row stalwarts Huntley Gordon, Hooper Atchley, and Henry Hall ("gosh all fish hooks!"). While the plot clearly echoes the true events depicted in Terence Fisher's "So Long at the Fair," this was perhaps the only period in early Hollywood that they could produce a conclusion in this vein, some two years prior to the notorious Hays Code. Claudia Dell was used to midnight mysteries, with future roles in 1935's "Midnight Phantom" and 1944's "Meeting at Midnight" (aka "Black Magic"), a Monogram Charlie Chan and, sadly, her final film.

A sister & brother check into a posh hotel. Shortly thereafter, the brother is missing, & despite the sister's inquiries, no one admits to ever having seen the man. Meanwhile, a sniper shoots bullets through the window of the room that the brother & sister stayed in. Is there any connection between these events?

There's a little mystery, a little terror, some spookish pranks, and an eerie mortuary scene that is quite effective in delivering scares, however I found the rest of the film quite average and flat at times and a little confusing - but the denouement at the end for the "strange" going-ons is surprising and offbeat.