User Reviews

"Murder at Midnight" starts with a game of charades - one of the participants has been murdered and then the killings start.

Aileen Pringle (who was a star of the 20s and had an affair with H.L. Mencken) is the star.

Leslie Fenton (an actor I always liked) played Walter Grayson.

The thing I couldn't get over was adorable Alice White. She played Millie the maid. She had about three lines. She may have been 2nd in the cast - more like 22nd in importance. I have adored Alice White for so long - I was really looking forward to seeing her in this film - any film. In 1930 her star was riding high - what happened?? I know she was involved in some scandals but I thought that was later in her career. She is much better served in "Employees' Entrance" - where she really shines and her charms are put to good use.

When this film first began, I thought the acting was just terrible. However, it turned out that it was supposed to sound stilted as you were watching a play and didn't know it. Then, when one actor shoots the other something strange happens—it's no longer acting but real. It seems that someone replaced the blanks in the gun with live bullets and the man is killed in the middle of this play. Soon, more folks start showing up dead and it's up to some of the dumbest police I've ever seen in a B-mystery movie to solve the crime—which turns out to be related to a change in a will and a wife who is unfaithful.

So, is it worth seeing? Well, no. I've seen a ton of cheap B-movies from the 1930s and there is nothing to make this one stand out from the crowd. In fact, the cliché of having a dumb cop investigating is taken amazingly far, as this cop (until the inexplicable ending where he shows some intelligence) is a total moron. This and an overall dullness to the film make this one not particularly engaging or new. A slow time-passer at best and no more.

By the way, if you are going to murder someone, doesn't having them shot in the play seem rather odd. After all, the odds of the actor shooting the other in a fatal location isn't super-high. Oh, well...never mind.

This early-talkie whodunit has an attention-grabbing start (a game of charades develops into a real murder), but it's mostly a stiff slog after that. There is the odd striking camera shot (including one from the POV of the murderer), but the arrangements of the actors are too theatrical, and the complete absence of a music score makes the dead spots even deader: the length feels more like 166 than 66 minutes! However, I do recommend sticking with it, because the culprit is truly surprising. The reason for that is that the culprit is a typical character of this genre, who in about 90% of such films has other functions, excluding that of the killer. The screenwriter turns some conventions on their head - before they had even become conventions. ** out of 4.

The story opens from an elaborate party-game of charades gone wrong, into a murder, via the switching of blank bullets for live ones. Enter the ever-bumbling detectives. Of course everyone present is a suspect. Thus the suspicion and subsequent murders ensues. A letter and will from the victim goes missing and the police expend an awful lot of energy trying to discover their whereabouts. This is because finding them can save the police from a lot of honest detective work! Eventually it is discovered that one of the main murder weapons was a phone with a concealed blade! Of course, this is exploited in finally revealing the identity of the killer. Although this monotonous murder mystery begins quite promisingly, it fails to fully develop into anything that interesting. There are a couple of relatively original plot twists, but these are far and few between enough to make this feel like it plods on at a snail's pace. The directing and camera-work are capable but the cast give wholly underwhelming performances. All in all, this movie would suit the avid fan of 30's murder mysteries, but for the rest of us, there is little to keep us hooked. At least this one doesn't involve a man in a gorilla suit!

Coming almost directly out of the silent era, "Murder at Midnight" might be said to suffer from one of the common complaints of early talkies - the picture more closely resembles a stage play put to film, with the actors and actresses over-enunciating and abruptly deliberate in their mannerism and speech. Getting beyond that though, you have an entertaining mystery given the era, with dead bodies piling up at a rapid pace. I thought it was interesting that when Inspector Taylor (Robert Elliott) first arrived at the Kennedy home, he wanted to see the two corpses - the phone call to the police station tipped him. But the second murder was committed while he was there! Very clever!

By the time it's all over, the body count hits a rather high count of five, and all from within the same house! The picture uses the old lights out trick, the black gloved hand coming in from off screen, and a couple instances of phone lines being cut, which was a bit of a puzzler, since a phone is still operative near the end of the story. I couldn't help thinking that Charlie Chan might be just around the corner to lend a hand in solving the mystery; he might have done it without pretty maid Mille (Alice White) and butler Lawrence (Brandon Hurst) being dispatched - I was sad to see them both go.

The biggest surprise though was the revelation of the killer - It's the only time in a movie I've seen where the murderer gives himself away by killing himself!!! Pretty neat wrap up for the Inspector who earned his pay in this one, while his inept subordinate couldn't stop eating peanuts!

Question: What happened to all the quickly obsolete sound gear that the first talkies used? Answer: It was given to Tiffany for nothing, provided they hauled it away. And that's why this movie looks like it was made two years earlier. Indeed it has all the characteristics of the early sound films. The trite plot serves merely as an excuse for all the actors to stand around in stiff attitudes and – in stentorian voices – talk, talk, talk! Also exhibited here is a 1928-29 fascination with sound effects, such as the noise of a vacuum cleaner, the ringing of a phone, the chiming of a clock, the firing of a pistol, etc. All of these effects are heard in isolation and are not mixed with other background noise. The dialogue itself has all been recorded from a sound-proof booth, resulting in not only the constant hampering of camera movement but diffusing of the screen image as a result of being photographed through glass. Director Frank Strayer is unable to use reverse angles – they would double the production cost – but he has attempted to impart a bit of movement to the film by occasionally employing a silent, mobile camera. There are often two or three extended crane shots at the beginning of sequences and maybe four or five imaginative set-ups. Alas, the acting is as dismal as the dialogue. On the other hand, the cast does have curiosity value (and this is almost the film's sole point of interest). Most of the players assembled here are old silent stars down on their luck. Most of them, alas, are past their prime in looks (Aileen Pringle looks at least ten years older than her biographical age), but Alice White, star of the original "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", still looks quite fetching. Good on you, Alice! But we can't understand the director's obvious reluctance to let her speak. Alas, when she finally opens her mouth, the effect is rather like that of the so-called "fictitious" silent star in "Singin' in the Rain". Understandably, Alice is allowed only a few lines before she is disappointingly bumped off. And yes, production values are more extensive than we might expect from Tiffany, but still relatively modest.

During an incredibly elaborate game of charades, a man shoots a friend of his with a gun he thinks has blanks. Alas, no - someone substituted real bullets. Murder after murder occurs until the quite unusual ending which surprised me and given the countless mysteries I have watched or read, that's saying something. Leslie Fenton and especially Clara Blandick as the aunt did good jobs but the rest of the cast not so much. While the Inspector had a couple of snappy lines, overall the film was humorless. There was a dumb cop who was a rude slob who kept throwing his peanut shells on the floor. I certainly don't regret watching the movie but except for the surprise of who the culprit was, I won't remember anything about the movie.

"Murder At Midnight" was originally released back in 1931.

Anyway - As the story goes - A high society game of charades turns deadly when an "unloaded" firearm kills a man. The man who shot him is obviously the prime suspect until he, too, is shot. Guessing the identity of the real culprit will have everyone scratching their heads in this "whodunit" mystery.