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

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Every movie star is entitled to one true clunker. This one is Humphrey Bogart's. Although he gets star billing in the re-release, he has only a few scenes before he is bumped off, possibly by the sweet, innocent lass on whom he's been cheating. But is she really guilty? Or is her confession the result of some sort of psychobabble? Her father might find out but he's too busy jabbering -- and over-acting. It's up to the DA to solve the mystery or at least end a seemingly endless stream of dim-witted dialogue. Even though "Call it Murder" was adapted from a stage play, nobody thought of throwing in even a few exteriors. At least Bogart survived. And Lynne Overman, easily the best of his co-stars, had a fine career as a character actor. Watch it for curiosity value. And be grateful that this fiasco didn't kill Bogart's career before it took off.

MIDNIGHT (reissued by "Guaranteed Pictures" in 1947 as CALL IT MURDER with eighth billed Humphrey Bogart - now famous - elevated to top billing for his supporting role) was originally filmed at the Biograph Studios in Queens, New York, for Universal Pictures, based on a Theatre Guild production of the same name (but called IN THE MEANTIME during its tryout tour).While the stage production disappointed the critics and was not extended beyond its initial subscription run (48 perf., December 29, 1930 - Feb. 1931 at the Guild Theatre), Claire and Paul Sifton's examination of the flaws in the idea that "the law is the law" regardless of justice or tempering with mercy was interesting enough to justify Universal's committing a cast from the top of their second tier to turning out a decent "programmer" to fill the demand for films to keep the screens they controlled occupied between their major releases and training stars in the making (like Bogart and Sidney Fox).The original play concerned the foreman of a jury, a man named Edward Weldon (O.P. Heggie on screen), which had condemned a woman for the murder of a man who was leaving her - only to find, two acts later, his daughter (Fox) in a similar situation.Director Chester Erskine (at the start of a career which would see well remembered work on such "A" releases as THE EGG AND I, ALL MY SONS and ANDROCLES AND THE LION, working as director, writer and producer for another 40 years), while unable to produce the figurative "silk purse" out of a possible "sow's ear" of a melodrama, opened up the play, originally set only in the Weldon living room, with excellent - and given the period, surprisingly sophisticated - crosscutting between the condemned woman, the daughter's developing affair and the moral quandary around the Weldon himself.If the 30's structure of the argument may strike many as dated today, and the "deus ex machina" solution to one of Weldon's problems too pat to be genuinely satisfying, they probably are - but the elder Weldon's overly strict, unbending interpretation of his moral and civic obligations is hardly unknown today as an excuse for lack of thought or bigotry. A remake with more "modern" technique might indeed be well received, but the implicit melodrama would be just as blatant.While Humphrey Bogart's role is a relatively small one (although it is woven through most of the film), it makes for legitimately fascinating viewing as a transitional role for the handsome actor who had been playing stage juveniles. He had had 15 Broadway roles in the 12 years - and 9 films in the three years - before making this film, but would only have two more Broadway credits afterward (but 66 films). His Gar Boni in MIDNIGHT is very well done in a more modern style than many around him (see the similar effect the young Helen Hayes achieved with the same then "fresh" realistic style in 1932's FAREWELL TO ARMS) before finding the "world weary" persona that won career-making acclaim for his "Duke Mantee" opposite Leslie Howard on Broadway and screen just two years later.It may be of some interest that on stage, the supporting role of Arthur Weldon (played in the film by future director Richard Whorf) was created by actor/playwright Clifford Odets. Finding a good print of MIDNIGHT or even CALL IT MURDER may not be easy, but the search may be worth it. Don't expect a polished "modern" film, and shallow film buffs who don't appreciate history or context will probably hate it, but true film connoisseurs shouldn't miss this one for what IS there.

Humphrey Bogart receives top billing in this film, which is somewhat surprising since he actually isn't in the movie all that much. He plays a man named Gar Boni, boyfriend of a woman (Sidney Fox) whose father (O.P. Heggie) was the foreman of a jury that convicted a woman of murder and had her sentenced to death. On the night the woman is due to be executed, the family gathers with friends who all try to convince Weldon (the father) that he should intervene to prevent the execution. (How a jury foreman would intervene at this late date is never answered.) He refuses, only to have his daughter stumble into the house, announcing that she's killed Gar. Weldon then has to decide whether to protect her or turn her over to the law.All things considered this movie hasn't aged particularly well. The acting is mediocre and the story of Weldon's daughter killing Gar on the same night the woman Weldon's jury convicted is to be executed is just too neat and tidy and contrived. No doubt this deserves some credit for tackling a controversial subject, and the movie seems to be an early example of advocating leniency for women who kill men who are unkind to them. Still, simply tackling a difficult subject isn't enough to make a bad movie into a good one. Fans of Bogart will be both interested and disappointed in this one: interested because it represents a look at one of his very early roles and disappointed because it's such a limited one. The other disappointment, of course, will be that this is really such a poor movie. 3/10

It was somewhat comical to see the full screen opening credit given Humphrey Bogart in this re-release version from Guaranteed Pictures. One of the mainstays of the public domain bargain bin, "Call It Murder" provides an early look at the future star in a limited role, which in retrospect could have been played by virtually anyone.Bogey's character is a minor hood named Gar Boni, caught in a predicament that requires him to leave town after getting involved with the daughter of a jury foreman. We don't find out much about his circumstances but they must be grim, an accomplice responds to Gar's penchant for baseball by asking - "Hey kid, they got any bulletproof grandstands out there?" Throughout the trial, Stella Weldon (Sidney Fox) finds herself at odds with her father's role; he was able to steer the jury to find Ethel Saxon (Helen Flint) guilty of murder by virtue of pre-meditation. The entire film is used to explore Weldon's (O.P. Heggie) resolve with the verdict in the face of public disapproval and mounting controversy over Saxon's execution. It provides the set up for his own daughter's circumstances when she pulls the trigger on Gar, a case of the jilted lover lashing out. Did she have time to think about what she would do, or was it an instinctive crime of passion?Overall, the film could have used better pacing, there were moments that seemed to drag incessantly. I was intrigued though by an interesting use of camera angles in a scene where Gar's departure from Stella is reflected in a mirror at the bottom of the staircase in the Weldon home. The picture might also have gotten more mileage out of the device of cutting between scenes of Weldon's conscience bound pacing with that of the doomed Saxon in her prison cell. The idea was a good one but was buried too quickly to make the point it could have.In it's way, the movie is a viable pre-cursor to the noir films of the following decade, it's dark and brooding, with the female lead encountering desperation as her payoff, whether or not D.A. Plunkett (Moffat Johnston) succeeds in digging her out of a mess. Her father meanwhile is left to wrestle his own conscience over the quandary of whether justice for one ought to be the basis of justice for all. An interesting moral dilemma as well as a legal one, the story works to confound us all if faced with the same situation.