“A brutal policeman is a terrible thing. He has too much power, too many chances of taking his viciousness out on helpless people.”
Optimism and pessimism fight it out in Between Midnight and Dawn, an entertaining and well-crafted crime melodrama from 1950. These competing worldviews are embodied in the characters of prowl-car officers Rocky Barnes (Mark Stevens) and Dan “Pappy” Purvis (Edmond O’Brien). Having formed a friendship as Marines on Guadalcanal, the pair returns to Los Angeles and a continued partnership as cops. The laid-back and gregarious Rocky has come through his war experiences in better shape than Dan, who in typical Edmond O’Brien fashion is portrayed as bitter, cynical, and brooding. Dan has trouble seeing the world in anything other than black and white — people are either all good or all bad, as he says to Rocky in a telling early exchange, “Wait until you’ve had your fill of the scum. Slugging, knifing, shooting holes in decent people. You’ll toughen up junior.”
The film opens with a solid noir sequence that finds Rocky and Dan responding to a call of suspicious activity at a warehouse. They come upon two young women in a parked car, doing a piss-poor job as lookouts for their beaus inside. Rocky and Dan put the bracelets on the girls and make for the warehouse. Inside they corner the suspects and short gunfight ensues, with Rocky forced to graze one of the youths with a shot from his service piece. Back at the station, the delinquents put on a tough act while one of the girls breaks down, pleading and “blubbering” to be let go. Though Rocky wonders about justice for a wayward teenager, it’s plain that age and gender merit no consideration with Dan — stone-faced as the hysterical girl is taken into custody, screaming over and over “I don’t want to go to jail!” as she’s dragged away.
The scene above does much to establish the competing personalities of Rocky and Dan, as well as the noir milieu of Between Midnight and Dawn. Although the dark visual framework of the picture is thoroughly realized by noir stalwart George Diskant (The Narrow Margin, On Dangerous Ground), the narrative is just as distinctive. Rocky and Dan live in an uncertain world of deteriorating values in which people are not what they appear to be. Two innocent-looking girls in a parked car are engaged in larceny, shop owners live in fear of all-powerful hoodlums, and children in the street are as prone to violence as accomplished hoodlums. Even the most innocent character in the film, love interest Kate Mallory (Gale Storm), initially deceives the pair — though her deception is understandable. As the daughter of an old-guard Irish cop who was gunned down in the line of duty, Kate is reluctant to begin a relationship with the infatuated Rocky, who has quietly fallen in love with the sultry voice of the dispatcher he hears each night in the radio car.
Speaking of Gale Storm, she’s a revelation. The poor man's Lucille Ball does very well here, and although she doesn't sing in the film she demonstrates surprising range as an actress. All of the characters in Between Midnight and Dawn are developed to a greater degree than expected, and Storm plays the part of the dead cop’s kid with clever aplomb. She projects outward confidence and wit carefully blended with the street smarts of one reared in a cop’s house. The movie takes seriously her efforts to steer clear of involvement with Rocky and Dan, and includes a few nice scenes between Gale and her live-in mother (Madge Blake). There’s a fine moment when Mrs. Mallory, having lost her own husband to violence, is able to convince her daughter that beginning a relationship with Rocky is the right thing to do. It might be odd for a noir picture to have such a pronounced romantic angle — as Between Midnight and Dawn does — but it actually works quite well because the romantic tension between Rocky and Kate is so firmly situated in her neurotic fear of his death.
And Rocky does indeed die, gunned down by foaming-at-the-mouth gangster Richie Garris (Donald Buka). This shouldn’t come as a surprise to viewers since every element of the story points to Rocky’s death. In fact, even in 1950 it was a sturdy movie-land convention that in a buddy-cop film one of the partners was doomed from the outset. What makes this particular scenario of interest is how Kate and Dan respond. Both characters suffer from a markedly cynical strain of pessimism. Kate’s is rooted in the fear of losing yet another loved one, while Dan’s is more complex — his idealism wasn’t lost in the war, but instead when he came home to a world changed from what he perceived he as fighting for. The wonderfully depressing notion is that unlike in other, more typical Hollywood productions, the worldview of these characters ultimately pans out! Kate loses her man, whom she loved against her better judgment, just as she lost her father, while Dan’s best friend falls victim to the senseless violence of a world gone mad. He and Rocky somehow managed to survive the island-hopping campaign of the Pacific war, only so Rocky could be shot in cold blood by a cheap gangster looking for cheap revenge. While Kate’s response to Rocky’s death is melancholic yet hopeful, Purvis sinks into despair and self-pity. He begins to haunt the nightclub where Garris’ girlfriend Terry Romaine (Gale Robbins) sings, hoping for a lead. When nothing pans out he confronts Terry — so enraged that he beats her when she denies knowledge of Garris’ whereabouts or wanting to be with him.
The notion of the gangster villain in a 1950 noir is interesting. In the legendary Warner Brothers pictures of the depression era, the romanticized gangster-hero was ultimately undone by the society he exploited — he was an aberration against a fundamentally incorruptible and morally superior social system — assuring his demise when that system inevitably became aroused against him. One of the crucial differences between film noir and the gangster film is in its view of the system itself, which noir presents as far more chaotic, cruel in its bureaucracy, and prone to corruption than in products of previous decades. By the 1950s Hollywood’s treatment of the gangster was also somewhat passé, and certainly less romantic. Donald Buka plays Garris as a caricature — a sputtering hood who manhandles his songbird girlfriend and tries to ham-handedly bribe or bulldoze his way out of every tight spot he gets into. His irrational actions are those of a child, and he represents everything in the world than Dan Purvis hates. Yet within the mid-century film noir construct, the power of the system and social justice is diminished. The iconic gangster figure is evolved into a pure sociopath; yet he exists in a system that is unable too stamp him out. When Garris is convicted of murder, his cronies bust him out of prison with laughable ease. He’s then able to exact revenge on Rocky and successfully elude the dragnet until tripped up by his need to possess a woman who no longer wants him — Garris is finally discovered by police running a stakeout of Terry’s apartment.
It’s in this final set piece that Purvis finally has the chance to avenge his friend and set the world in order. But even in this he’s somewhat thwarted — though he’s clearly the better man with his hands or his firearm, fate conspires to muddy the waters of his revenge — and in so doing change the way he sees the world. As Garris attempts to escape the surrounded building, he dangles a child out of a high window as a warning against further police action. Purvis gets permission to quietly enter in an attempt to bring Garris down on his own. When he sees the child safe in a different room he tosses a gas bomb into the apartment and climbs through the window. Inside the smoke-filled apartment Garris gets the drop on Purvis and opens fire, but not before Terry dives in front of Dan, taking the bullets intended for him and saving his life. Dan overtakes Garris in the hall and blasts him. Garris tumbles down the stairs, leaving a bloody, smeared handprint on the wall. Dan leaves the building and finds Kate waiting for him. Dan has a great deal to ponder as he and Kate exit the film arm in arm: has to live knowing that he wasn’t Kate’s choice — that Rocky had to die for him to get the girl. He also bears the burden of redemption, granted to him by a woman he had denigrated and beaten, yet gave her life to save him.
Optimism and pessimism fight it out in Between Midnight and Dawn, an entertaining and well-crafted crime melodrama from 1950. These competing worldviews are embodied in the characters of prowl-car officers Rocky Barnes (Mark Stevens) and Dan “Pappy” Purvis (Edmond O’Brien). Having formed a friendship as Marines on Guadalcanal, the pair returns to Los Angeles and a continued partnership as cops. The laid-back and gregarious Rocky has come through his war experiences in better shape than Dan, who in typical Edmond O’Brien fashion is portrayed as bitter, cynical, and brooding. Dan has trouble seeing the world in anything other than black and white — people are either all good or all bad, as he says to Rocky in a telling early exchange, “Wait until you’ve had your fill of the scum. Slugging, knifing, shooting holes in decent people. You’ll toughen up junior.”
The film opens with a solid noir sequence that finds Rocky and Dan responding to a call of suspicious activity at a warehouse. They come upon two young women in a parked car, doing a piss-poor job as lookouts for their beaus inside. Rocky and Dan put the bracelets on the girls and make for the warehouse. Inside they corner the suspects and short gunfight ensues, with Rocky forced to graze one of the youths with a shot from his service piece. Back at the station, the delinquents put on a tough act while one of the girls breaks down, pleading and “blubbering” to be let go. Though Rocky wonders about justice for a wayward teenager, it’s plain that age and gender merit no consideration with Dan — stone-faced as the hysterical girl is taken into custody, screaming over and over “I don’t want to go to jail!” as she’s dragged away.
The scene above does much to establish the competing personalities of Rocky and Dan, as well as the noir milieu of Between Midnight and Dawn. Although the dark visual framework of the picture is thoroughly realized by noir stalwart George Diskant (The Narrow Margin, On Dangerous Ground), the narrative is just as distinctive. Rocky and Dan live in an uncertain world of deteriorating values in which people are not what they appear to be. Two innocent-looking girls in a parked car are engaged in larceny, shop owners live in fear of all-powerful hoodlums, and children in the street are as prone to violence as accomplished hoodlums. Even the most innocent character in the film, love interest Kate Mallory (Gale Storm), initially deceives the pair — though her deception is understandable. As the daughter of an old-guard Irish cop who was gunned down in the line of duty, Kate is reluctant to begin a relationship with the infatuated Rocky, who has quietly fallen in love with the sultry voice of the dispatcher he hears each night in the radio car.
Speaking of Gale Storm, she’s a revelation. The poor man's Lucille Ball does very well here, and although she doesn't sing in the film she demonstrates surprising range as an actress. All of the characters in Between Midnight and Dawn are developed to a greater degree than expected, and Storm plays the part of the dead cop’s kid with clever aplomb. She projects outward confidence and wit carefully blended with the street smarts of one reared in a cop’s house. The movie takes seriously her efforts to steer clear of involvement with Rocky and Dan, and includes a few nice scenes between Gale and her live-in mother (Madge Blake). There’s a fine moment when Mrs. Mallory, having lost her own husband to violence, is able to convince her daughter that beginning a relationship with Rocky is the right thing to do. It might be odd for a noir picture to have such a pronounced romantic angle — as Between Midnight and Dawn does — but it actually works quite well because the romantic tension between Rocky and Kate is so firmly situated in her neurotic fear of his death.
And Rocky does indeed die, gunned down by foaming-at-the-mouth gangster Richie Garris (Donald Buka). This shouldn’t come as a surprise to viewers since every element of the story points to Rocky’s death. In fact, even in 1950 it was a sturdy movie-land convention that in a buddy-cop film one of the partners was doomed from the outset. What makes this particular scenario of interest is how Kate and Dan respond. Both characters suffer from a markedly cynical strain of pessimism. Kate’s is rooted in the fear of losing yet another loved one, while Dan’s is more complex — his idealism wasn’t lost in the war, but instead when he came home to a world changed from what he perceived he as fighting for. The wonderfully depressing notion is that unlike in other, more typical Hollywood productions, the worldview of these characters ultimately pans out! Kate loses her man, whom she loved against her better judgment, just as she lost her father, while Dan’s best friend falls victim to the senseless violence of a world gone mad. He and Rocky somehow managed to survive the island-hopping campaign of the Pacific war, only so Rocky could be shot in cold blood by a cheap gangster looking for cheap revenge. While Kate’s response to Rocky’s death is melancholic yet hopeful, Purvis sinks into despair and self-pity. He begins to haunt the nightclub where Garris’ girlfriend Terry Romaine (Gale Robbins) sings, hoping for a lead. When nothing pans out he confronts Terry — so enraged that he beats her when she denies knowledge of Garris’ whereabouts or wanting to be with him.
The notion of the gangster villain in a 1950 noir is interesting. In the legendary Warner Brothers pictures of the depression era, the romanticized gangster-hero was ultimately undone by the society he exploited — he was an aberration against a fundamentally incorruptible and morally superior social system — assuring his demise when that system inevitably became aroused against him. One of the crucial differences between film noir and the gangster film is in its view of the system itself, which noir presents as far more chaotic, cruel in its bureaucracy, and prone to corruption than in products of previous decades. By the 1950s Hollywood’s treatment of the gangster was also somewhat passé, and certainly less romantic. Donald Buka plays Garris as a caricature — a sputtering hood who manhandles his songbird girlfriend and tries to ham-handedly bribe or bulldoze his way out of every tight spot he gets into. His irrational actions are those of a child, and he represents everything in the world than Dan Purvis hates. Yet within the mid-century film noir construct, the power of the system and social justice is diminished. The iconic gangster figure is evolved into a pure sociopath; yet he exists in a system that is unable too stamp him out. When Garris is convicted of murder, his cronies bust him out of prison with laughable ease. He’s then able to exact revenge on Rocky and successfully elude the dragnet until tripped up by his need to possess a woman who no longer wants him — Garris is finally discovered by police running a stakeout of Terry’s apartment.
It’s in this final set piece that Purvis finally has the chance to avenge his friend and set the world in order. But even in this he’s somewhat thwarted — though he’s clearly the better man with his hands or his firearm, fate conspires to muddy the waters of his revenge — and in so doing change the way he sees the world. As Garris attempts to escape the surrounded building, he dangles a child out of a high window as a warning against further police action. Purvis gets permission to quietly enter in an attempt to bring Garris down on his own. When he sees the child safe in a different room he tosses a gas bomb into the apartment and climbs through the window. Inside the smoke-filled apartment Garris gets the drop on Purvis and opens fire, but not before Terry dives in front of Dan, taking the bullets intended for him and saving his life. Dan overtakes Garris in the hall and blasts him. Garris tumbles down the stairs, leaving a bloody, smeared handprint on the wall. Dan leaves the building and finds Kate waiting for him. Dan has a great deal to ponder as he and Kate exit the film arm in arm: has to live knowing that he wasn’t Kate’s choice — that Rocky had to die for him to get the girl. He also bears the burden of redemption, granted to him by a woman he had denigrated and beaten, yet gave her life to save him.
Between Midnight and Dawn (1950)
Director: Gordon Douglas
Cinematographer: George Diskant
Story: Leo Katcher and Gerald Drayson Adams
Screenplay: Eugene Ling
Starring: Mark Stevens, Edmond O’Brien, and Gale Storm
Released by: Columbia Pictures
Running time: 89 minutes
Cinematographer: George Diskant
Story: Leo Katcher and Gerald Drayson Adams
Screenplay: Eugene Ling
Starring: Mark Stevens, Edmond O’Brien, and Gale Storm
Released by: Columbia Pictures
Running time: 89 minutes
Mark, you had me at Edmond O'Brien, but this sounds like a pretty good one in the bargain.
ReplyDeleteA Swedish film poster, yay! I can't believe they wanted to translate the original title to "Police Car 13", though?
ReplyDeleteThe working title of this one was "Prowl Car." There are also some procedural sequences early on when they are establishing the relationship between Rocky and Kate where they refer to the guys as Car 13 over and over. I wonder how "Between Midnight and Dawn" translates? At any rate -- thanks for the great comment Lolita!
ReplyDelete