Star of Midnight

Plot

New York lawyer and playboy Clay "Dal" Dalzell (William Powell) is asked by old friend Tim Winthrop (Leslie Fenton) to locate his girlfriend Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in Chicago a year ago. Winthrop cannot stop thinking about her and believes she is in New York.

Along with Donna Mantin (Ginger Rogers), who has romantic designs on him, "Dal" attends a hit stage show called "Midnight" that stars a masked actress, Mary Smith (Bess Flowers), who vanishes in mid-performance when Winthrop recognizes her and blurts out the name Alice.

Gossip columnist Tommy Tennant (Russell Hopton) claims to have discovered a vital clue to the mystery, but before he can reveal it, he is shot in Dal's suite. Dal is the main suspect, but Inspector Doremus does not believe him to be guilty, and gives the resourceful lawyer the freedom to investigate on his own.

Dal negotiates with gangster Kinland to retrieve letters embarrassing to Donna. When he gets them (using a bit of blackmail), he is annoyed to discover that they actually belong to a friend of Donna's.

Dal runs into an old flame, Jerry (Vivien Oakland), now wed to a lawyer named Classon (Ralph Morgan). Classon, it turns out, is also searching for Alice; she can provide an alibi for his client, convicted of a murder in Chicago.

Dal sets up a trap in a Greenwich Village apartment, pretending to have located the missing Mary there and notifying each of the suspects that she is leaving there to meet him at his suite. He reasons that those who are innocent will go to his suite, while the murderer heads to the apartment to silence Mary.

The killer indeed turns up, in disguise, putting Dal and Donna in grave danger. Fortunately, Dal and Inspector Doremus (J. Farrell MacDonald) are able to subdue the culprit. It is Robert Classon. It turns out that Jerry had carried on affairs, first with the Chicago murder victim, then with his accused killer. Robert Classon killed one of his wife's lovers and tried to frame the other. To achieve the latter, he also needed to silence Alice, unaware that she had fled to avoid testifying. She hated the convicted man for ruining her father.

With everything wrapped up, Dal finally gives in and marries Donna.

Cast

Reception

In his The New York Times review, Andre Sennwald called it a "sleek, witty and engaging entertainment". Noting the similarities to the previous year's The Thin Man (also starring Powell as a debonaire amateur detective), however, Sennwald concluded "it is never quite as satisfying as its illustrious predecessor." Writing for The Spectator, Graham Greene also drew comparisons between the film's craftsmanship and that of The Thin Man (as well as The Trunk Mystery), describing Star of Midnight as "a light, quick, sophisticated comedy ... all suavity and amusement, pistol-shots and cocktails".

The film was popular and earned RKO a profit of $265,000.

Home media

Star of Midnight has been released on VHS as part of the RKO Collection and on DVD in Italy (region 2) as La Maschera Di Mezzanotte, with Italian and English soundtracks.