blanche-2 John Howard and Margaret Lindsay star in "A Tragedy at Midnight," a 1942 film from poverty row Republic Studios.Greg Sherman (John Howard) is a radio personality who solves cases that the police have failed to do. So the police hate him. His wife Beth (Lindsay) is a mystery writer. One evening, Beth goes out to visit her sister while Greg goes to a party. The next morning, he wakes up and nudges his wife, who doesn't move. When he looks more closely, it's not his wife, but a dead woman he doesn't recognize. She has a knife in her back.When Beth returns, she thinks he spent the night with another woman and calls the police. Greg escapes and, once Beth realizes the truth, the two of them try to find out the identity of the woman and also who killed her.This is a good mystery, actually, and it goes quickly, perhaps more quickly than intended since I understand the version on Netflix is cut. John Howard and Margaret Lindsay are fine. Howard calls her "Mommy," which William Powell calls Myrna Loy in the "Thin Man" films, so this is an unashamed ripoff. It probably was supposed to be a B version series of films as well, but it didn't happen.Keye Luke plays the couple's servant and he's not what one would call politically correct today.Entertaining.

gridoon2018 I become aware of Margaret Lindsay fairly recently, (not through her more famous films where she had a supporting role to Bette Davis, but) through the low-budget mystery film series "Ellery Queen", where she played the title character's loyal and smart secretary, Nikki Porter; her presence brightened up those films, and I became a fan. Now I will watch any mystery movie that Lindsay made around that period (let's say, 1935-1945), and she made plenty. But of course most of them are extremely hard to find today, even in DVD-R copies. Luckily, I did manage to get one such copy (of acceptable quality) of "A Tragedy At Midnight", where she is teamed up with John Howard, another actor prolific in this genre (he played Bulldog Drummond several times). Lindsay and Howard play a loving couple (he's a radio detective, she's a writer) who find a dead body in their own apartment (which is actually not quite their own apartment), and go on the run so that they can solve the case and prove their innocence. The two leads do click together, and Lindsay is once again delightful to watch. Keye Luke is also amusing as their jiu-jitsu-practicing butler! The film moves fairly fast and has more than enough twists packed into its short (just under an hour) running time. It's a pleasant watch, but more of an appetizer than a full-course meal. **1/2 out of 4.

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.

secondtake A Tragedy at Midnight (1942)This is a snappy, genuinely funny movie. It's very short, and it's certainly a contrivance--a catchy idea and a necessary series of pratfalls and twists--but it entertains, which was the idea for a second feature like this, a counterpart to a bigger A-movie. Remember also that this is not a noir, but a crime film in the mold of the 1930s "Thin Man" series, with a combination of wise cracks and narrow escapes.The hook is that the leading man, played by John Howard (who played the "other man" in "Philadelphia Story"), has a radio show where he makes fun of the police for not solving crimes, and then solves them on the air. He comes home to find a dead woman in his wife's bed. His wife, Margaret Lindsay, helps him solve this crime, which they eventually do right on the air in a fun ending.I see that this has a very low rating, and that surprises me. Yes, the movie is slight and obvious, but only like the best television shows are (and t.v. shows get inflated ratings here). What I mean is, I think you'd find the movie rather well done and a fun time if you don't expect a full feature experience. Howard and Lindsay are both strong, likable, and convincing. The echoes of "The Thin Man" do make you realize that Powell and Loy are a different caliber altogether. But if you have a lazy 45 minutes, give this a shot.