Midnight Phantom (1935) User Reviews

Things happen quickly .....in the last ten minutes!!!

[kidboots · 5/10 · 24 September 2009]

Why Claudia Dell didn't become a bigger star is a mystery. Her first starring role was in "Sweet Kitty Belairs" (1930) and she was very sweet, but all too soon musicals were out of vogue and by the next year Claudia had a minor role as Sylvia Sidney's mean sorority sister in the pretty dismal "Confessions of a Co-Ed". Still, she was around for a few years and made some pretty good programmers eg "Midnight Warning" (1932) and "A Woman Condemned" (1934) but there were also clinkers like "Midnight Phantom". Even though the credits were shadowed by a caped silhouette and the opening scenes had unusual photography with car chases and night club scenes, the music was almost jaunty - and that should have been a warning!!

The new police chief, James Sullivan (James Farley) is making many enemies as he vows to clean up corruption in the police department. His favourite phrase is "As long as I'm alive" but it isn't long before he isn't (alive that is). Before he expires he takes the time to pick fights with almost everyone in his department. Only Professor David Graham (Reginald Denny), a noted criminologist, escapes with praise. He is in love with Diana (Claudia Dell), the police chief's daughter, but she has just become engaged to Dan Burke (Lloyd Hughes), a respected policeman.

Sullivan also has a few skeletons in his cupboard. He is having an affair with his secretary, Kathleen Ryan (Barbara Bedford, a silent screen actress, who looks very stylish in this role). Kathleen is frightened of her mother (Mary Foley), an overbearing "mannish" policewoman, who in a scary scene bursts in and threatens Sullivan, unless he does the "honourable" thing. Burke is having problems as well - his crooked half brother has been slain in a robbery and Sullivan, in a fit of temper, withdraws his consent for Diana and Dan's engagement.

Sullivan organises a demonstration to be given by Graham at midnight (the only time Graham has free) of the various criminal types. The room is filled with Sullivan's enemies and just as the demonstration finishes Sullivan falls dead - poisoned by a drug from the Amazon. Before the doctor can pronounce his findings, he, too, is killed!!! Things happen pretty quickly after that - but the film has only about 5 minutes to go!

Although she is second billed, Claudia doesn't have a lot to do. Harley Wood, more at home in exploitation dramas such as "Marihuana" (1935), has a bit part as Miss Withers, the captain's daughter. Al St. John also has a bit as a radio operator.

Gee!

[Spuzzlightyear · 6/10 · 2 May 2006]

This bizarrely paced thriller gets it all wrong for some odd reason. Instead of killing off the person who needs to be killed (and we find out early that that person is going to be killed, the way he sets himself and the characters up) and then creating a mystery leading to the solving of the case, the film introduces us to characters, sets up ridiculous some ridiculous family dramas, and THEN gets around to the murder in the final 15 minutes or so, and goes on to solve it in that time! As usual, it's the guy you least expect that does the deed, but I had my suspicions from the start! Anyways, the bad guy is executed, and one of the characters says, "Gee!" to that. I agree. This movie is fun to watch though for the bizarre story structure though, and the pacing makes it quite entertaining.

Too much talk

[dbborroughs · 4/10 · 7 February 2006]

A new police chief is murdered and almost all of the suspects are cops.

This is a very talky movie. People talk and talk and talk and talk and it gets dull very quickly since this seems to be more about talk than action. A case in point is that most of the first third of this film is the police chief talking to various members of the police force about how he wants them to change their corrupt or incompetent ways or else he'll fire them or lock them up. While it sets up the suspects nicely it doesn't do much for keeping interest. Eventually Reginald Denny shows up playing a professor of criminology and things pick up as we at last get to the murder. The second half of the film is a battle between Denny's science vs the tried and true police methods. Its a bit more interesting than whats gone before but its still long winded.

Not a bad film as such its just not very compelling. There are too many characters and too much talk and it really just doesn't grab you the way it should. Is it worth seeing? If you like old mysteries its worth a shot but I'd see if you can borrow a copy off a friend since its not worth renting or purchasing since you'll probably watch it just once.

Plan 9 From Outer Space ain't got nuthin' on this one!

[whitetigerzone · 13 February 2002]

Ludicrous dialog! Impossible plot! Execrable acting! Looks like it was shot in one afternoon. How can you not love a movie where someone says "When the lights went out, I held up the glass table top between us. So you're poison dart missed me!" In the scene right after the police chief has (hysterically) dressed down all of his subordinates and they're all filing out of the room, you can hear someone, presumably the director, shouting "Now call back Silverstein" just before the chief says "Inspector Silverstein, a word with you please." A highlight has a "professor of criminology" accurately guessing the offences of criminals in a line up based solely on their appearance. These ultra-cheap movies of the 30's and 40's, made by companies long out of business like PRC, Reliable Pictures, Chesterfield are ghoulishly fascinating, when they're not the routine westerns that were made by the hundreds. The interesting thing is when they feature a name actor (this one has Reginald Denny!) at some really low point in his/her career. You have to wonder, where were they shown? What did audiences of the time think of them? When we hear that half the films made before 1950 are lost, I suspect that most of the lost films are of this calibur and aside from the weirdness value, it's no great tragedy, though there were the rare gems in this bunch....

A Reliable production

[kevinolzak · 3/10 · 21 December 2013]

1935's "Midnight Phantom" was a rare non-Western from Reliable Pictures Corporation, which lasted five years and produced 48 titles overall. Top billing goes to Reginald Denny, playing a famed criminologist who just happens to be conducting a lecture on that subject when the local police chief (James G. Farley) gets knocked off. Among the roomful of officers under suspicion, we have his daughter's fiancée, whose late brother was killed in the process of committing a crime. Then when the police surgeon claims to have discovered the murder method, he immediately keels over dead! Unfortunately, the first murder doesn't occur until the 45 minute mark of this 59 minute feature, way too much exposition for even the sturdiest movie buff. Claudia Dell's promising career never really took off, making her final appearance in a 1944 Monogram Charlie Chan, "Black Magic." In the end, Reginald Denny was perfectly cast, coming off a similar role in James Whale's sumptuous "Remember Last Night?"

Just Terrible, But Quotable!

[Hitchcoc · 2/10 · 5 November 2009]

This is the creme de la creme of awful. It is the slowest moving, dullest thing on four legs. The first third of the film takes place in the office of the police chief, a windbag who calls people in and berates them for various reasons. He apparently is under fire from politicians. There are so many substrains, most of which are unrelated and have nothing to do with a plot. At one point the young male lead kills his own brother and is then not allowed to marry the chief's daughter because he didn't disclose his connection to a criminal. If you watch the film, you'd know that he just found out as the guy was dying. There are others. The chief has a secretary half his age, the daughter of one of the ugliest women I've ever seen. The old lady is a policewoman and insists the chief marry her daughter because the two have been seen together. Then there is this hilarious scene where a series of prisoners are paraded in front of criminologist Reginald Denny. He comments on their criminal appearance (shifty eyes and lack of ambition, for example), and tells what their traits are. He hits on all cylinders. Reefer Madness has nothing on this one. I'm so happy I got to see it and would like to watch it with friends. It's so sincere and so awful.

See it for the music

[westerfieldalfred · 4/10 · 13 December 2015]

The Abe Meyer Synchronizing Service produced a lot of thrilling music for poverty row. Usually it's overlaid by hoof beats, gun shots or screams. My favorite is the theme from Mystery Mountain (1934), written for a Ken Maynard serial. It is also used as the theme music for The Phantom Empire (1935) and many final chase scenes in B westerns. I look for films that have Meyer's music uninterrupted by other sounds. For example, the longest uninterrupted portion of Stealthy Footsteps is found in Revolt of the Zombies (1936). Another famous chase cue begins the action in Midnight Phantom. Although not played to its end, it is the most complete uninterrupted version I've found. It is played again half- way through the film. As I recall, it also appears in The Phantom Empire. I've watched the film three times since downloading it earlier this week just for the music.

Otherwise, the film is pretty unintelligible because of many cuts due to damage in the surviving print. As mentioned by others the dialog is banal and extensive. It's always a pleasure to see Lloyd Hughes and Claudia Dell but here their direction is poor. The murder is pretty senseless as is the cover-up. The solution comes out of thin air. And the final scenes just don't work. The look of the film is raised by the use of quality rented sets, however.

Really badly structured poverty row flick

[Red-Barracuda · 3/10 · 28 September 2009]

It's difficult to know who to recommend this poverty row obscurity to. While it's technically a mystery, it barely functions as such due to the way in which it's structured. For the first three-quarters of the film you could be forgiven for wondering where exactly this movie is going. We are introduced to an array of characters who work for a police chief. We are made aware that all of these people have a grudge of sorts against the man. But, aside from a brief car chase involving cops and robbers, the narrative is basically a lot of melodrama; that is until, with fifteen minutes of the movie remaining, the chief is murdered in a darkened room populated by all of the cast members. So the mystery only lasts for about ten minutes before the killer is unmasked and we are treated to the very pointless epilogue. It has to be said, however, that the amazingly inept plot structure is the only thing that stands out about this film.

Midnight Phantom is almost a movie about nothing. Even the title is ridiculously misleading and meaningless. It clocks in at just under an hour so it is at least mercifully short. I can only recommend this to poverty row completists, although I would be surprised if there is such a thing.

What does this title have to do with the movie?!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 22 July 2007]

The movie begins with a tough police chief calling in his captains as well as a few other employees into his office to yell at them. While he is portrayed as a "no nonsense" leader, he also seems irrational after a while and so it's not surprising that someone eventually kills the man. This murder occurs during a silly scene in which a criminologist looks at prisoners one after another and gives snap assessments as to what sort of crimes they have committed--and he's right again and again! Who needs rap sheets or eye witnesses when we have this!? This is a great example of the sort of odd logic that occurs in this movie with a lot of very convoluted and nearly impossible to believe plot twists. In addition to poor writing, the pacing is very erratic--sometimes moving very quickly and other times, like the end, when the film just drags--the murder mystery is solved but there still is a pointless epilogue that does nothing but dilute the message. How the murder occurs is bizarre and nonsensical and the why is also pretty weird. Plus, how this impossible to believe mystery is solved so quickly also defies common sense and I assume the writers must have been drunk or insane. All these wild aspects, together, make for a bad film that isn't even bad enough to be funny--just limp and unappealing.

Three cheers for Josh!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 26 October 2012]

I always cheer when I see Josh Westmoreland's name in a movie's credits. What a pleasure it is not to have to strain my ears to catch what people are saying, or even, if the worst comes to the worst, being forced to turn on the English sub-titles! True, sometimes the DVD or 16mm transfer itself can be blamed for an inaudible or fuzzy sound track. But five times out of ten, you can point an accusing finger at the incompetence of the original sound engineers. So the first thing you notice on the superb Grapevine DVD is that the sound is loud and clear and every word -- no matter how fast it's delivered -- is distinct, audible and unmistakable. The second thing you notice are the superb visuals supplied by Pliny Goodfriend -- one of Hollywood's best cinematographers. Everything in such beautiful, sharp focus, it's like watching a brand new 35mm print in a distributor's preview cinema.

By the humble standards of director/producer Bernard B. Ray, the movie itself -- aside from its ridiculous epilogue -- isn't too bad. Denny plays with far more flair here than in the accompanying movie, "The Lady in Scarlet" (also released in 1935) on Grapevine's Denny DVD, although the real star of the film is actually Jim Farley, who has by far the largest role. Lloyd Hughes also impresses and is far less wooden here than usual. It's also great to see (and hear) Barbara Bedford. Admittedly, it's a small role, but an important one. John Elliott is in the movie too.

So, all told, despite the rubbish tacked on to the end of the movie and other script deficiencies -- plus the fact that there is no phantom with either a small or a capital "P" -- the Denny DVD is a good buy.

Muddled Murder Matters

[wes-connors · 3/10 · 9 April 2009]

Chief of police Jim Farley (as James A. Sullivan) agrees to give lieutenant Lloyd Hughes (as Dan Burke) permission to marry his daughter, reputed "Columbia Pictures" logo model Claudia Dell (as Diana Sullivan). This disappoints criminologist Reginald Denny (as David Graham), who also wants to marry Ms. Dell. After Mr. Hughes' juvenile delinquent brother is involved in an embarrassing criminal incident, Mr. Farley rejects Hughes' request for his daughter's hand in marriage; and, Mr. Denny finds himself back in the competition.

*** Midnight Phantom (11/27/35) Bernard B. Ray ~ Reginald Denny, Claudia Dell, Lloyd Hughes

Lack of structure and inconsistent characters destroy typically produced "B" mystery.

[mark.waltz · 1/10 · 7 June 2014]

A young detective engaged to the chief's daughter finds himself engulfed in scandal when his younger brother is killed after being identified as a bank robber. The understanding chief, in the midst of asking him to break off the engagement, turns suddenly judgmental and non- understanding, and even the daughter changes her attitude as this scene progresses. These inconsistencies destroy a basically likable murder mystery that builds up some over-the-top suspects to a good scene where the chief is found dead as crime scientist Reginald Denny goes through an experiment identifying the criminal characteristics of suspects simply based upon their looks.

One of the most absurd plot elements is the presence of an extremely butch matron who demands that the chief marries her daughter who happens to be his secretary, all for no apparent reason. This all follows a very well written opening where the chief meets with various members of his staff to either praise or discipline them, increasing the suspect list and introducing a few red herrings as well. The denouncement is the film's nail in its own coffin, leaving it as dead and buried as the chief who bites the dust.

The dreadful screenplay is made to seem even worse by the actors who go from reciting adequate delivery of the dialog into seeming like they are reading the script from a teleprompter, never having read a physical script or rehearsed it. Jim Farley ("the chief") is the actor most guilty of this, most obvious because he is the character most guilty of transitioning from one personality to another without reason.

Somewhere in this 60 minute yawn there's a 10 minute film

[Chase_Witherspoon · 1/10 · 21 July 2012]

Dreary tale of nothing that centres around a city police precinct in which the cranky chief (Farley) becomes the target of an apparently disgruntled regional captain, while his daughter (Dell) frets about her imminent marriage to precinct hotshot (Hughes) whose younger brother was exposed to be a criminal, tainting both his position in the Force and with his future wife and in-law.

Reginald Denny co-stars as the charismatic, cigar-making professor who can diagnose a criminal from just a line-up, a performance he duly displays for the precinct at midnight leading to the anti-climactic five-minute whodunit. The final five minutes treats the audience to a pointless epilogue involving a picnic; something to which you can look forward. As for the first fifty minutes, there's very little material on which to comment, just Farley berating his captains for their ineptitude and remonstrating with Hughes over the shame his criminal family name will bring onto his only daughter. It's an aimless soap opera.

Still not too sure why Denny appears in this film given his relative stature, though his performance is assured where those of his peers in this film leave more than a little to be desired - two obvious line fluffs and frequent jump cuts suggesting a very amateurish production is in the making. Even by mid-thirties poverty row standards, the "Midnight Phantom" is a late-night yawn.

Midnight Phantom

[Scarecrow-88 · 4/10 · 14 May 2011]

The Big City is a mecca of crime and illegal gambling, which causes plenty of headaches for Chief of Police, James A Sullivan (Jim Farley) who tries to keep his police force in check, questioning the loyalties of some, while demanding better performance from others. He's not popular, that's for sure, but expects his men to perform their duties. Trying to keep himself out of scandal is not easy, as the gamblers have started rumors about Sullivan having an affair with his secretary, her mother (a hardnosed policewoman, unwilling to accept Sullivan's version of the story, that there is nothing going on) not happy in the least, and his daughter's fiancé had a brother who was shot dead while in the middle of a heist getaway. Sullivan is vocal about not wanting daughter Diana (Claudia Dell) to marry Lieutenant Daniel Burke (Lloyd Hughes) because of the news about the brother's death, right on the front page and certain to bring unneeded press his way when it isn't wanted during a stressful time when the crime rate is rising. When Sullivan is found dead during a conference featuring criminologist Professor David Graham (Reginald Denny), who is profiling a series of criminals for members of the police force (featuring many who are critics of Sullivan and his methods as police Chief), a list of suspicious people could be responsible. It seems a poisonous needle is the culprit behind the death, deriving from a tribe, which causes the heart to stop along with paralysis, and Graham will try to discover who the killer is--that is unless he himself is the man. Talky, creaky poverty row drama, doesn't embrace the Agatha Christie mystery until the movie is almost over, by then probably lulling the audience watching into a coma. The movie takes its time setting up the laundry list of suspects, coming out of left field with the real killer whose motives are a bit hard to swallow. It's the "perfect crime" debauched by an unlikely turn of events, which has us questioning why the killer would dare wait until he's in a room full of police officers to take out Sullivan, instead of targeting the true source of his misery in a much different setting. There's no reason the viewer should have to slog through 45 minutes of movie to get to the good stuff, only for the result to be this stale.

So bad, words are inadequate.

[kyivguy · 2/10 · 1 January 2022]

With no plot continuity, half of the movie comprised of stock footage, and coupled with high school drama club performances, Midnight Phantom (which has no relevance to the story) is an unmitigated disaster. I gave it a 2 rating only because of Reginald Denny from The Shadow movies fame.