If a witty and urbane Powell solving mysteries with a beautiful sidekick sounds familiar, it’s because RKO wanted to clone The Thin Man using the same star. Nobody will mistake this for the genuine article but it works and did make money. Despite this no sequels were made.
Reliable Gene Lockhart played in a ton of films. Here he played Powell’s put out butler. Our paths have crossed four other times and I’m sure they will again. J. Farrell MacDonald was amusing as the police inspector. Our paths crossed only seven or eight times which is surprising because the dude appeared in almost three hundred feature films. Many of them the classic Hollywood bulk B films, and frequently uncredited, but better stuff as well.
Ginger Rogers is delightful as the Myrna Loy stand in and they had genuine chemistry together. She is twenty years Powell’s junior and has been badgering him to marry her since she was eleven. The less we speak of that the better.
Star of Midnight succeeds as a fun, clever mystery, but it’s central problem is that the story is unfocused. There are too many characters, some of which are never seen, and I sometimes found myself confused who Bill was talking about. A second viewing would definitely clear things up but I’m not certain it deserves the time. AMRU 3.
“Now, listen Tim, you're free, white, and twenty-one. You can do as you choose.”
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