Curapedi 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.

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Red-Barracuda A mysterious showman/charlatan arrives at a small town and immediately starts courting a girl whose father owns a valuable deed for land in an oil field. The father is murdered in the night by an unknown assassin and two bungling detectives get on the trail of the murderer.Midnight Shadow is entirely negligible as a mystery film. It's not very involving and it displays the usual deficiencies that these old poverty row films tend to like an abundance of stupid and unnecessary comedy relief. While its resolution was particularly poor and abrupt (it didn't really explain very clearly why the guilty party was actually guilty). The acting is also below par, even for these types of movies, with at least one actor appearing to be reading his lines off cue cards. However, this movie is best appreciated for reasons beyond all of the above. It's interesting as one of the films of the 30's made specifically for the black movie theatres. Hence the all-black cast. It also explains the strange opening text that tells audiences of lands in the American Deep South that are self-governed entirely by and for black people! This of course goes some way to explaining to audiences why everybody is black, including law enforcers, lawyers and detectives. Naturally, this is completely historically inaccurate! But what the hey – it's the movies, right?Overall, this is not a good film but it's quite interesting historically and it has a very short running time so its deficiencies aren't really that painful to bear.

Chase_Witherspoon Comedy mystery with an all-black cast (not pertaining to rugby), with the daughter of a wealthy landowner (Redd) being wooed by the charismatic but suspicious circus mentalist and apparent sub-continent royal heir (Criner), before her father is murdered and deeds to an oil-rich plot of land stolen during the night. Two bumbling detectives join forces with the police to catch the killer whom they believe will attempt to cash-in the stolen land deed, employing their unique brand of detective skills to solve the mystery and claim the kudos.Swiftly told tale suffers for its amateurish acting (many times do the cast appear to lose character and look off-stage for direction), but also a curiously erratic narrative that never settles whether it's comedy or mystery. Perhaps it's both, and if so, it's a period piece in which the only recognisable face (to me) was Ruby Daindridge in a minor supporting role playing the mother of a bookish novice detective (Bates) who looks and behaves like the Chris Rock of his era.Classified as a "race" film, it might be worth seeking if you're a film historian, but there's little else to recommend it to mainstream audiences, with a poorly conceived plot, some truly abominable acting and at times, painfully laboured dialogue.

kidboots This isn't as bad a film as some of the reviewers imply. "Race" movie productions had budgets that made Monogram look like MGM. Considering many of the players weren't professional actors - half the cast of "Midnight Shadow" only appeared in one or two movies at the most and those that did appear in more main stream movies, were mostly in uncredited, demeaning roles. Many of the cast seemed to handle their roles in a natural manner (ie Ollie Ann Robinson and Jess Lee Brooks) although a couple looked like a deer caught in the headlights (Frances Redd, who was a model and not an actress anyway.) There was no need for a musical interlude in this film as it was just a regular "who done it" and moved along briskly. These films were made for black audiences and tried to depict stories about everyday situations (not always about witch doctors and voodoo etc).When a well respected business man turns up dead, suspicion falls on his daughter's two suitors. They happen to be in the house when Margaret's father brings out his oil well deeds and both act suspiciously. The first suitor calls himself "The Great Prince Alihabad" and impresses Margaret's mother (Ollie Ann Robinson) as being shifty. The second is Buster (Edward Brandon) who has a very "hang dog" expression - Margaret (Frances Redd) is very fickle and is giving him the run around. In the synopsis that accompanied this DVD it said "Margaret decides to track down the killer herself with the aid of two bumbling private eyes". That is completely false. Margaret wasn't in it much to begin with and almost disappeared during the last half of the movie. The bumbling private eyes were in it however. Lightfoot and Junior Lingley (who is allowed to help out at his mother's (Ruby Dandridge) insistence). There was a funny exchange between them - "I let you get the dope on this case" "I didn't know it was a dope case" "Not that type of dope"!!! They do crack the case at the end - it is not who anyone would think!!! and they do have some interesting scenes with Sgt. Ramsey (an outstanding Jess Lee Brooks) at the end.These films were important. At a time when most white audiences thought Stepin Fetchit was a very real portrait of the Afro American character, "race" movies attempted to show black people as they really were.

Arthur Hausner Whoever wrote this mystery must have shrunk from embarrassment. You will notice there is no screenwriter in the credits, not even an uncredited one. After a reasonable start, including the suspense of having an intruder enter the bedroom of an elderly sleeping couple, the movie goes downhill rapidly. And it has one of the most anticlimactic endings for a mystery I have ever seen. I would like to say you may enjoy the comedy, but I can't. There is a limit of ineptness beyond which a character comes off just stupid rather than funny. Richard Bates plays this kind of a character. He dresses in a Sherlock Holmes hat and pipe and looks for fingerprints with his magnifying glass. Except he looks everywhere except at the crime scene. That's the level of comedy in this movie. His partner, Buck Woods, isn't quite as stupid, but comes close. Their comedy relief was really bad. About the only thing I liked was seeing Ruby Dandridge (the mother of Dorothy Dandridge) in her first film. There was no musical entertainment in the film, quite unusual for a "race" film made for black audiences, since that was often a staple of such films.