dougdoepke
All in all, the programmer's a pretty obscure entry in the amateur sleuth sweepstakes so popular at the time. Here it's radio crime broadcaster John Howard and his spunky wife Margaret Lindsey trying to figure out who put a dead woman in his bed, much to wife Lindsey's chagrin. The trail gets complicated, such that the whodunit part is secondary to colorful byplay. Happily though, Lindsey really shines; in fact, her smile alone lit up my gloomy living room. It's really her spark that carries the proceedings.Then too, the little byplay with the prissy hat designer remains a comedy highlight. Too bad Keye Luke's factotum has to call Howard "master". Still, he shows his jiujitsu skills in spades, and without use of a double that I could detect. Note, the naughty innuendo around finding a strange woman in the marital bed, even if it is a double one. Apparently, censorship relaxed a bit on this one. Note also presence of Roscoe Karns as the humorous cop Cassidy, a role similar to his TV Rocky King, Detective (1951-54). Nothing special about the 57-minutes, even though the cast does its best with what amounts to a murky script that's better in parts than as a whole.
froberts73
Let's get over all this stuff about Powell-Loy. Howard-Lindsay hold their own in this Republic gem. I am all for 'the Republic for which it stands'.The plot, not too original but, who cares? It was carried out beautifully by a cast of some of the era's most popular character actors.The dialog, penned by a femme, was great fun and so well handled by John Howard and Margaret Lindsay. Why she never achieved greater fame, I will never know. She has a Lamarr-like beauty, gorgeous from any angle, and when it comes to line delivery excuse me - but - she equals Loy.The chemistry between the stars - and they are that - is beautiful, the dialog is clever and witty.The judo moves were very convincing as delivered by Keye Luke who also was A-plus in line delivery."A Tragedy at Midnight" is thoroughly enjoyable at any hour.
johnnydollar01
A ripoff of The Thin Man series, but entertaining in its own right. But the TV prints (like the one used by Netflix streaming) slash about 15 minutes out of this 69-minute movie! There's a big chunk missing at the beginning, which is apparently where the relationships with the neighbors is set up and who is sleeping where (an important fact). And there's another few minutes eliminated about halfway through the film.In the early days of TV Republic would edit its movies down to about 53 minutes so that TV stations could run them in an hour time slot (back then they only had 3 minutes of commercials per half hour!). So beware the edited TV prints of this title.
stltape
"A Tragedy AT MIDNIGHT" was a very entertaining mystery romance. John Howard and Margaret Lindsay made a great romantic detective team. Keye Luke, was also good as their ingenious servant, always on the spot to get them out of trouble.They were always one step ahead of the police in solving crimes and broadcasting solutions of crimes on their radio program, thereby frustrating the police who then wanted to get them off the air by finding something they could be arrested for.this appeared to be solved when our hero woke up one morning and found a woman with a knife in her back in his wife's bed.They then proceed to unravel the mystery. In some ways this picture is similar to the Thin Man series.I had a VHS copy of this film that I made off the air but the tape oxide eventually went bad. I hope the last remaining copy on nitrate based film is restored before the nitrate turns to powder. it would be a shame if the picture were lost.
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