Before Midnight (1933)

To me, this movie is perfection.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

From Nov 1933-Aug 1934, Columbia released a forgotten quartet of features starring dependable Ralph Bellamy in the role of Inspector Steve Trent, with "Before Midnight" the first, followed by "One is Guilty," "The Crime of Helen Stanley," and "Girl in Danger." Since only "The Crime of Helen Stanley" is also available, one can judge the series by only two titles, but it's clear that this modest initial entry has more horror touches in its setup. On a dark and stormy night, Inspector Trent is called to the isolated mansion of Edward Arnold (William Jeffrey), who believes he's soon to be murdered based on a family curse involving a pool of blood and a clock that stops. Director Lambert Hillyer proves he was no slouch at delivering oppressive atmosphere (better known for "The Invisible Ray" and "Dracula's Daughter"), and the whodunit aspects are also first rate. Lovely leading lady June Collyer starred opposite Bela Lugosi in a 1935 mystery, "Murder by Television," before giving up acting to enjoy life as the wife of Stuart Erwin. Bellamy solved quite a few cases ("Rendezvous at Midnight," "The Final Hour") before he started playing detective Ellery Queen in 1940, eventually settling into a solid character career that lasted 60 years.

Ralph Bellamy stars as 'Inspector Trent'--a detective who is trying to solve a murder. However, his method of solving the case seems to be to let the murderer kill off all the other possible so that by the process of elimination he's found the killer! In the very first scene, a guy announces to Trent that he's about to be murdered--and he is! Then, the houseboy appears to be connected to the crime and he's stabbed in the back right before the very eyes of Trent!! At the end, when Bellamy discovers the killer, he deliberately gives the guy ample opportunity to kill himself--thus saving the tax payers from having to pay to incarcerate him!! This is all pretty funny, as the case is apparently being told to an up and coming cop who wants an advancement--and his boss tells him how Trent so masterfully solved the case as an example of great detective work!!! Thank God other 'great detectives' don't work this way!! Fortunately, despite this weird plot element, the solution to the crime is actually really cool and makes this B-mystery well worth seeing. Good acting, a genuinely interesting mystery and a relatively ineffectual detective make this one to watch. Plus, it's nice to see Bellamy in a film where he doesn't lose the girl in the end...which seemed to happen all too often through the 1930s and early 40s!

**SPOILERS** Whodunit with an unusual multiracial cast for that time-1933-with African/American Fred Snowflake Toons as the taxi driver and Otto Yamaoka as the Arnold's Japanese houseboy Kono. In fact some ten years later Yamaoka was rounded up with some 150,000 fellow Japanese Americans and put in an internment camp for the duration of WWII as a possible dangerous enemy alien despite him being a native born American citizen.In the film "Smiling" Ralph Bellamy playing the part of police inspector Trent is called to the Arnold Mansion in Forest Lake NY to check out threats against Edward Arnold's, William Jeffreys, life. Arnold feels that someone is out to get him to fore-fill a third generation Arnold family curse that has him slated to die before the clock strikes midnight! Sure enough as a storm hits the area around the midnight hour Arnold suddenly drops dead right in front of Inspt. Trent and some half dozen witnesses including his personal doctor David Marsh, Arthur Pierson!It's soon determined by the local coroner that Aronld didn't die of fright as at first thought but of an injection of cyanide potassium. With Dr. Mrash giving Arnold an injection for his heart condition just hours before his sudden death he becomes the #1 suspect in his murder. Inspt. Trent for some reason feels that Dr. Marsh is innocent in Arnold's murder because it was so obvious to him that he was set up to take the blame for it! Inspt. Trent concentrates on those at the mansion at the time of Arnold's death which included his best friend the mysterious John Fry, Clude Gillingwater. It was Fry back in 1918, in far off China, who saved Arnold's life from a rare and tropical disease. There's also the mystery of the late Edward Arnold's live in secretary Janet Holt, June Collyer, who as it later turned out was the reason, without her having a clue about it, for Arnold's murder. ***SPOILERS*** As Inspt. Trent starts to uncover the mystery behind Arnold's murder he zeros in on Arnold houseboy Kono who not only knows who was behind his "Master's" murder but what was the instrument of murder that he used to kill him. There's also the late Arnold's shyster lawyer Howard B. Smith, Bradley Page, and John Fry's estranged wife Marvis, Betty Blythe. The two are involved in trying to get their hands on Janet's late moms diary locked in the Arnold mansion's safe that reveals the true reasons for Arnold's infatuation with both her and her daughter that may have well been the real reason for his murder. A little on the complicated side "Before Midnight" does keep the audience as well as Inspt. Trent guessing to who murdered Arnold who as it turned out was someone as close to him as his very shadow. The surprise ending came so unexpectedly that it even took the cool and collective Inspt. Trent by surprise even though he was the one who figured it out!

Good, tight murder mystery that is brief and no-nonsense in its approach. It is a pre-code film but there's nothing here that might have been objectionable at the time. Also missing is the 30's habit of inserting comic relief into a story that doesn't need any, and this one doesn't need it. George Cooper plays Stubby, a dim-witted assistant detective who comes off as dim-witted but not as comic relief.Ralph Bellamy is Detective Trent, trying to solve a murder that takes place on a dark and stormy (and very noisy) night in a mansion with the usual suspects roaming around. What strikes you is the tone of all players, and especially Bellamy, as there is not a hint of the good-natured warmth or friendliness normally found in most pictures of this or any other kind - just a group grimly determined to get to the bottom of the proceedings. No jokes, no romance, just the facts.Nevertheless, it is well worth your time. It is an old-fashioned whodunnit that will challenge your own powers of deduction - and no laughing, please.