Star of Midnight (1935)

Very disappointing...

Just perfect...

best movie i've ever seen.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

An actress mysteriously flees the stage during a play, eventually involving an attorney and his girlfriend in a web of intrigue.The movie's something of an obscure oddity. Odd because the premise is so close to the Thin Man formula of amateur whodunits. Only here it's Powell and girlfriend Rogers instead of Powell and wife Myrna Loy solving the murders. It also comes the same year,1936, as After the Thin Man, the second entry in that MGM series. Since the similarities are so close, I wonder if Star was originally written for the Thin Man series, but something happened that forced a change of studios.Anyway, Star is only a mediocre whodunit, lacking the spark and drollery of Powell and Loy. Frankly, Rogers is miscast in a restrained role that does not play to her domineering, brassy strengths. Pairing her with the polished Powell amounts to a casting mismatch, despite her honorable effort to make the pairing work. Plus the twenty-year age difference unfortunately shows up in the visuals. Perhaps RKO was trying to emulate MGM's Thin Man with a similar entry of its own.The plot is murky, to say the least, and I agree that the suspects, if you can track them, remain a colorless lot. Fortunately, director Roberts adds some atmosphere and suspense, but the script remains a difficulty. Speaking of added touches, the last twist is a fairly unexpected and effective one. All in all, the movie remains pretty obscure, likely because it suffers in comparison to the more sparkling Thin Man series that it so resembles.

STAR OF MIDNIGHT could easily be mistaken for a Nick and Nora mystery, so similar are the central characters played by WILLIAM POWELL and GINGER ROGERS. Powell is his usual debonair self as a lawyer who sets about to solve a murder he becomes mixed up in and Ginger is her charming self as the girl who wants to marry him some day. The police even suspect Powell may have committed the murder of a gossip columnist.The mystery is full of suspicious looking characters who might be at the bottom of the crime, but a quick look at the cast and I guessed who the murderer was before the plot even unraveled. From then on, I concentrated on the art deco settings for Powell's pad, especially that modern looking bathroom shower.PAUL KELLY has a good tough supporting role and RALPH MORGAN is a distinguished looking gentleman (a more serious version of his brother, Frank Morgan), and LESLIE FENTON does what he can with the role of another suspect. GENE LOCKHART is amusing as Powell's butler.Typical murder mystery from the '30s combining screwball comedy and the usual twists and turns.

My first favorite is Clifton Webb's bathroom in "Laura". When I win the lottery, I plan to hand the DVD of "Laura" to the finest interior decorator money can hire and say, "Create Waldo Lydecker's bathroom for me." Now that I've seen "Star of Midnight", I will have to add, "And incorporate William Powell's shower." Besides the fantastic Art Deco sets, Star of Midnight is enjoyable for the excellent comic yet suave performance by William Powell. Perhaps inspired by Powell, Ginger Rogers is less wooden than usual, and I (no Ginger fan) found myself rooting for her in her pursuit of marital bliss. Paul Kelly, Gene Lockhart and J. Farrell MacDonald turn in respectable if not particularly memorable performances. The only two clucks in the bunch are Leslie Fenton as the young man in search of a lost love (even if they scraped off the pancake makeup and the extra eyeliner he still would only have one expression in his repertoire), and a clod-footed "comic" turn by Robert Emmett O'Connor as a dumb police detective. Fortunately, they have very few scenes. I enjoyed "Star of Midnight", especially for William Powell's performance, and will watch it again and again.

William Powell and Ginger Rogers are a neat screen team in "Star of Midnight," a 1935 comedy-drama that concerns the disappearance of a woman named "Alice." Alice's hapless boyfriend spots her starring in a show under another name and wearing a mask. He stands up in the audience and screams "Alice" - and by the time he gets backstage, Alice has left the building. Shortly after this, a newspaper columnist is murdered in Powell's apartment. That's just the beginning. When Alice fades from view, it signals a web that connects a couple of crimes and an old girlfriend of Powell's.Powell plays a lawyer who often doubles as a detective, and Rogers is a young woman who decided as a child that she was going to marry him. They make a good-looking and fun couple. Both handle the dialogue beautifully and play off each other well. It always amazes me how quickly people spoke in the early films. It really gives witty dialogue a nice crackle. This is also a good film to see to get a grasp on the '30s styles of design and fashions. Lots of time is spent in Powell's impressive apartment, and the slim Rogers shows off a beautiful wardrobe. There is also some footage of New York in the '30s which is marvelous."Star of Midnight" has a somewhat colorless supporting cast, the exception being Paul Kelly, with most of the focus being on Powell and Rogers. This is a familiar role for Powell, but I could watch him forever. He was a true master of this genre. A very enjoyable movie -I wish Powell and Rogers had been paired together more.