"The murderer is in this room!"
Annie Van Auken | Planet Earth | 11/06/2009
(3 out of 5 stars)
"MIDNIGHT PHANTOM, from Poverty Row's RNC, looks like it was made in 1930 rather than '35. Jarring edits where static camera mid-shots on two people are pieced together with obvious visual jumps during seamless dialogue are most distracting, as is an overuse of stock footage.
Our story actually opens with a double/triple/quadruple film stock collage of a downtown street at night overlaid with cranking sirens, car chases, firing tommy guns and other vibrant police action. Sadly, it's the most exciting part of this low-end programmer.
The plot is straightforward: an overbearing Irish-brogued police chief (Farley) who is hated by at least a dozen underlings refuses to let Lt. Burke (Hughes) marry his daughter (Dell) after the lieutenant's brother is one of a bank robbing gang who's killed by cops. The chief dies suddenly from unnatural causes at a midnight forensics demonstration held by Prof. Graham (Denny). Everyone in the crowded room is suspect. The professor believes he can figure out who the killer is.
ALPHA VIDEO offers bargain priced, often hard-to-find vintage movies that are ideal for those willing to skip DVD extras. Their transfers show no evidence of restoration, so quality varies from one title to the next, with "fair to good" being the average.
Also from ALPHA:
In TOUGH TO HANDLE (1937), little Frankie Darro, Phyllis Cerf and Kane Richmond take on a ring of sweepstakes ticket counterfeiters.
Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 imdb viewer poll rating.
(5.2) Midnight Phantom (1935) - Reginald Denny/Claudia Dell/Lloyd Hughes/Jim Farley/Al St. John"
MURDER MYSTERY!!!!!
larryj1 | AZ, USA | 05/23/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Very interesting little murder mystery. The Alpha print is pretty decent for this film."