Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the next installment of A Movie A Week.
[For those who new to the column, A Movie A Week is just that, a dedicated way for me explore vintage cinema every week. I’ll review a movie every Monday and each one will be connected to the one before it via a common thread, either an actor, director, writer, producer or some other crew member. Each film, pulled from my DVD shelf or recorded on the home DVR (I heart TCM) will be one I haven’t seen.]
When I sat down to watch this movie I was in a hotel room at a resort overlooking the aquamarine water and white sand beaches of Puerto Rico. Not to brag, but I hope you guys appreciate the sacrifices I make for this column!
And it speaks volumes about this movie that I was able to ignore the quiet call of the ocean during my sparse free time in Puerto Rico and focus on the movie. Unlike a lot of the movies of this time period MIDNIGHT MARY doesn’t feel stagey. In fact, it’s one of the most modern-feeling films of this time period I’ve covered in the entirety of AMAW or AMAD.
This film, directed by THE PUBLIC ENEMY’s William A. Wellman, came into my collection when I received the third TCM (probably the best cable channel ever) Forbidden Hollywood box set gathering together pre-code Hollywood films.
We’ve talked a little about pre-code here, but let me take a little time to explain what that means for those not quite sure. Pre-code signifies a time period between the invention of talkies and the implementation of the first censor board in 1930 called The Motion Picture Production Code or the Hays Code after the wicked witch looking politician who invented it: Will H. Hays.
While this censor board was in place in 1930 they didn’t become active until 1934 and they lasted until the late ‘60s where the code underwent the transformation to what we know today. The Motion Picture Production Code changed its name in 1945 to the Motion Picture Association of America.
The Hays code was incredibly strict, guarding the delicate morality of the country of course. Filmmakers weren’t allowed to talk openly about sex, glorify criminals, mock law enforcement, etc. I’d wager that’s why most noirs end up badly for the morally ambiguous leads lest the poor impressionable citizens get any fancy ideas that crime can pay.
So, the appeal of these pre-code movies is that while there were local censors to contend with there wasn’t a national board and the films were allowed to be frank with their subject matter.
There’s absolutely no way MIDNIGHT MARY could have been made under the Hays Code. The main character gets shit on constantly and it seems every time she makes a strong moral choice she gets punished for it and every time she chooses the quick, easy and crime-ridden life she gets rewarded. Hell, the implication is that Loretta Young is a prostitute at the beginning of her story.
Plus her best friend in the movie has an out of wedlock romance and gets knocked up. The biggest impact it has on her? “Well, I guess we gotta get married now.”
Young plays the lead, Mary Martin, who starts off as a high-spirited innocent and ends up falling in with the wrong group of people, pretty much dragged in by her best friend Bunny (Una Merkel), a promiscuous blonde bombshell.
In fact we see them both as kids and in a really bizarre choice the filmmakers had both Una and Loretta playing themselves at what must have been 12 or 14… Boobs taped down, hair in pigtails and standing in holes to make them the right height. Absolutely bizarre, but it only lasts for a scene so it didn’t distract too much.
The movie opens in a very interesting way. I love it when we join a story already in progress, you know? Here Young is on trial for murder, the DA making an impassioned speech to the jury demanding the stiffest sentence all while Young nonchalantly reads a magazine.
Her lawyer asks her why she didn’t even try to play to the jury and her answer is that they already made up their minds, so why bother?
While they’re deliberating, Young spends time in the office of a court official who has been working for decades. Leather bound books surround the two as they sit and talk. He has one book for each year of his career, detailing the cases of the court.
Wellman uses these as visual clues into flashbacks, telling us Young’s story year by year from childhood up to the murder and the trial itself.
In a way this is a love triangle movie. Young is constantly torn between a square-jawed gangster (Leo Darcy, played by Ricardo Cortez) and rich socialite and respected member of society Tom Mannering Jr, played by Franchot Tone.
Both men represent different sides of the same coin. Cortez is flashy and dangerous whereas Mannering Jr. is safe, kind, funny. It’s Mary’s own self-doubt that keeps her from making the obvious choice and going with the nice guy. She doesn’t feel she deserves him, thinking her life is already locked in at age 20. Mary was a delinquent, spent time at a boarding school (another tie into last week’s THE MAYOR OF HELL) and all her friends are criminals. What would she do in proper society, even if it is what she dreams of?
Mannering doesn’t care, of course and even manages to convince Mary that it just might be possible to let her old life go, but this universe has some harsh laws. It’s GODFATHER rules. Every time she thinks she out they pull her right back in, but she’s culpable. In fact, she’s her own worst enemy. If she had the courage of her convictions, if she had the backbone to take what she wanted the situation would never spiral to the point where she finds herself in front of a jury awaiting a sure conviction on the count of murder.
Young is great here, very natural and full of emotion. She was only two years away of getting knocked up by the married Clark Gable while filming The Call of the Wild. It’s a pretty amazing story, actually, how Young secreted herself away in Europe during the pregnancy as to not let the studio bosses know she had broken the “Morality Clause” in her contract. There’s nothing quite like Old Hollywood stories.
Anyway, the acting is very good throughout, with the broadest performer being character actor Andy Devine playing a clueless and constantly drunk rich friend of Mannering’s. I was first introduced to Devine through Disney’s animated ROBIN HOOD. He played Friar Tuck with that incredibly distinctive voice of his.
Outside of Young’s fantastic performance, the second MVP goes to Franchot Tone, playing the charming and funny good guy Tom Mannering Jr. The key to this performance is that while Mannering feels safe, he’s not dull. On the contrary. He’s got a sense of humor about himself and his station in life and always seems to the take the piss out of every situation, but doesn’t do it in a mean way.
The ending of the movie is a bit too good to be true stuff, but we don’t get a clear picture at what the future has in store for our main characters, so maybe it’s not so tacked on afterall. I love a happy ending like anybody else and I feel guilty as hell about this, but I imagine these characters’ lives going right to shit after the credits are finished. The world shown here isn’t a kind one and I don’t see the happy ending scenario lasting.
Final Thoughts: I found this film to be engrossing and modernly plotted. Wellman’s direction is sharp and inventive. The cast all click and don’t come off as laughingly dated. Most importantly the subject matter is a few decades ahead of the curve. I very highly recommend this to any fan of this era of movies or of cinema in general. This is one of those old-timey movies that don’t feel like homework if you know what I mean.
Upcoming A Movie A Week Titles:
Monday, September 21st: AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956)
Monday, September 28th: THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955)
You may have noticed that I didn’t add a new title to the line-up. The answer for that is simple… Starting October 1st I’m going to be switching gears to this year’s HMAD (Horror Movie A Day) which I started last year. That means 31 horror films, one a day from October 1st-31st. When I get to THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY I’ll publish the first week of HMAD titles. Gonna be fun… right now the gamut is run between Ingmar Bergman and Troma… it’s gonna be a blast!
Next week we follow squeaky-voiced Andy Devine over to comedy classic AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS! Should be fun! See you folks then!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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