Excellent but underrated film

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The first must-see film of the year.

The film starts at the end. Mary Martin (Loretta Young) is on trial for murder. She seems resigned to her fate, browsing through a magazine during final arguments. When the jury goes out the clerk of the court offers to let her wait out the jury in his office. He's a kind gentle old fellow and mentions he has done this job for almost 38 years. Mary starts looking at the covers of the record books on the shelves and remembering how she had gotten to the place she was - sitting in a chair waiting to see if she is going to get "The" chair. What follows is a flashback of a girl who had very bad luck and a bad companion - Bunny (Una Merkel)who, when she tries to steal some jewelry, lets Mary take the rap even though Mary knew nothing about it. Mary gets three years in juvenile hall, and when she gets out at 16, she and Bunny get mixed up with Leo (Ricardo Cortez) and company, a couple of racketeers.Mary gets away from them for awhile and tries to find a decent job, but the doors are all shut for her. Now this had me puzzled. The movie was made in 1933, but this is supposed to be the 1920's when times were good. I guess WB thought audiences could relate to Mary better if she was having a bad economic time of it like everybody else in 1933. Wellman uses his silent movie techniques to sum up the despair of job-hunters in the Great Depression via a succession of large neon billboards, where the wording constantly changes from the name of the product being advertised and each sign instead proclaims "No help wanted" or "No jobs today". At any rate, starving, she goes back to the gang and to Leo, only to part with them again when a speak easy robbery goes bad and a cop is shot.She is rescued from the scene by wealthy Tom (Franchot Tone). He helps her get a decent job by underwriting her secretarial school and then putting her to work in his law firm. Tom never knew about the robbery and the shot cop, and then one day Mary's past catches up to her unexpectedly and she has to make Tom believe she never cared about him because she does not want him mixed up in a scandal. When she gets out of jail she goes back to Leo, still staying away from Tom to keep him out of trouble. Where this goes and who she kills and why she kills I'll leave for you to watch and find out.And this is where we came in. Mary halfway acts like she would like to get the death sentence. If you want to see what does happen - and it is a real Hollywood style ending, then watch and see. Actually, I thought Ricardo Cortez was better than Loretta Young here. He has this smooth exterior but you just keep waiting for him to boil over into pure anger at any given moment. Loretta Young did a good job, but her role didn't give her a chance to surprise you with her range or anything like that. Franchot sprinkles his nice guy persona with plenty humor, and the whole cast sprinkles the entire production with frank talk of sex that you won't see after the code.

I am also surprised, reading the high praise reaped on this film from the other reviewers. Sure, I quite liked the film, but "jaw droppingly awesome" no no no!!! I'd reserve comments like that for Barbara Stanwyck or Bette Davis - not Loretta Young, for crying out loud!!! Critics were not impressed with the movie either, but it was hugely popular as the movie public flocked to see Loretta's fall, suffering and redemption. There is no denying Loretta Young's beauty. From what I have read it was the first time she was given a character with a bit of depth and she really proved herself. Definitely her expressive eyes were made the most of - the first shot of her reading "Cosmopolitan" her eyes showed her feelings - she is confidant she will get off, then as the film reverts to a flashback, her eyes express fright as she is sent to a juvenile detention centre.Mary is on trial for murder and as she waits for the jury and talks to the kindly clerk (Charley Grapewin) - she relives her life. Her mother dies, then she is caught shop-lifting (she is just an innocent bystander, but that doesn't stop the judge sending her up for 3 years). On her release she is ready for excitement and along with her friend Bunny (Una Merkel) falls in with racketeer, Leo Darcy (dishy Ricardo Cortez). Again nothing "naughty" seems to happen to give the film a "pre-code" status - even Mary's dresses are not revealing. The only suggestive scene is when Bunny reveals her pregnancy and Mary says "he'll just have to marry you then" and when Mary is trying on fur coats. There is also some violence towards women as well. Mary seems keen to accept all the good things in life that Leo can provide but when a policeman is shot she has to face reality. She is caught and goes to jail rather than rat on her friends. When she is released she is determined to earn her living in an honest way. She becomes a secretary and, of course, falls for her boss, Tom Mannering Jnr. (Franchot Tone). Leo has already entered the picture - he was impressed with her loyalty and when he finds her down and out on a park bench, finds it easy to persuade her to return to the good life. When Leo finds Mary and Tom chatting, he sees red and is determined to gun Tom down, but Mary stops him with a gun.It is a very enjoyable film but definitely not as wonderful as a few reviewers would have you believe. I agree with Dan - to me it is an old fashioned melodrama and not a pre-coder.Recommended.

Despite rapturous reviews by some, "Midnight Mary" is a VERY average, even tedious talkathon with no visual surprises. The story could have been told just as well on radio.The film is called a "precoder" by some because it was released in 1933, but the date is the only thing "precode" about it. It stars Loretta Young, then a rising star in Hollywood on the strength of strong performances in the late silent and early talkie eras. She plays Mary Martin, an innocent girl who is taken in by a gangster (Ricardo Cortez) who fancies her, and becomes his "moll." That's it. That's the extent of any sexual content in the film, which is primarily concerned with Mary's trial for the murder of her gangster boyfriend.The story unfolds in flashback after an opening courtroom scene showing the D.A. pleading loudly to the jury that they MUST find Mary guilty. We see the defendant sitting, reading a magazine, apparently unmindful of what the D.A. and the jury think about her.Two spoilers coming up. Mary is convicted, but in the final scene her True Love (Franchot Tone) springs to her defense, telling the court he has some new information. I was furious that this long-winded soap opera might continue for another hour or so; but fortunately, director William Wellman takes mercy on us and winds up the story, right there.One of the benchmarks I use when reviewing a movie is this: If the story could have been told just as well ON RADIO, the movie fails because there are no interesting visuals.That, alas, is the story of "Midnight Mary."

This is a seldom-discussed but highly significant title in the pre-code canon, as it delineates the compromises a pretty and (originally) moral young woman must make to extricate herself from poverty during the depression. Overall, it's a predictable melodrama, very typical of its period, and the fact that Wild Bill Wellman was for some reason working at MGM for this one tends to stultify the brashness that was his trademark in his early years at Warners. Nonetheless, the tricky editing is very Warners-like and keeps the story moving at a rapid pace, particularly in the jaw-dropping montage where the eponymous character loses her virginity. Most importantly, the script is very frank about sex and absolutely cynical about American society at the time. The most notorious scene is all innuendo -- in order to distract her gangster paramour, Mary inaudibly whispers in his ear, obviously relating in quite some detail the pleasures she will endow him with if only he comes to bed with her immediately. Loretta Young is luminous as always and Ricardo Cortez has a nice time with his role as a confident hoodlum who knows he has her on a string. As for Franchot Tone and Grady Sutton...