Chinatown at Midnight (1949) User Reviews

Nasty b- film

[gordonl56 · 7/10 · 10 January 2012]

An enjoyable Columbia Studios quickie starring Hurd Hatfield, Jean Willes, Ray Walker, Tom Powers, Charles Russell, Jacqueline De Witt, Benson Fong and Victor Sen Young.

The film is set in San Francisco's Chinatown. Hatfield is a "slightly" nuts gunman, thief and all around nasty. He works for upscale antique dealer, Jacqueline De Witt. She cases high-end shops etc for expensive pieces and then sends Hatfield to "acquire" said items.

Hatfield simply walks in at closing time, sticks a gun in the clerk's face and asks them to wrap up the item. He then shoots the clerk dead, calls the police, tells them there has been a shooting and leaves. The police show up and can never figure out who did the shooting or made the phone call. What really throws the cops off is the different foreign accent he uses when he calls. They are not sure who or what they are looking for.

De Witt then fakes up a history for the items and sells them down the coast in L.A. to wealthy clients.

This train of events hits a loose rail when one of De Witt's customers reads about a stolen statue in a newspaper story. It sure sounds like the one the woman had bought from De Witt. A call to the cops and they come calling on De Witt.

Only problem is that Hatfield reads the same paper and has already tied up the loose end with several bullets to De Witt's back. The police finally tumble to Hatfield when they just miss catching him during a botched robbery.

Hatfield hits the flophouse district in an effort to lay low till the heat is off. The cops however keep up the pressure and soon flush him out. There is a rooftop chase and a blazing gun battle before Hatfield is dispatched.

This programmer is all nicely tied up in 66 mins. This quickie was directed by Seymour Friedman. Friedman gave us LOAN SHARK, DEVIL'S HENCHMAN, CUSTOM'S AGENT, CRIMINAL LAWYER and several of the BOSTON BLACKIE films.

The d of p was Henry Freulich who worked on BUNCO SQUAD, UNDER THE GUN, NEW ORLEANS UNCENSORED, CHICAGO SYNDICATE and THE CROOKED WEB.

The lead, Hatfield, was also in DESTINATION MURDER, THE UNSUSPECTED and THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY.

It is an OK time waster in my humble opinion.

OK b- crime film

[Panamint · 6/10 · 1 July 2018]

Its a Sam Katzman produced film so you know its cheap. But that is OK in this case since its a police-procedure black and white movie that doesn't require any kind of budget to be effective. Its a serviceable representative of the raw style police films that were popular in the late 1940's/early 50's.

Hurd Hatfield delivers another of his flawless performances that elevated every project he ever appeared in. Hatfield was a remarkable actor who deserved much more than he received from the Hollywood establishment. He is much admired retrospectively nowadays for his contributions to stage, screen and TV. Also featured is a versatile and familiar actor, as talented as he was gruff, by the name of Tom Powers as the police captain. Numerous other capable and familiar actors do good work here.

This film moves along briskly which helps overcome the low budget and general lack of depth. It evokes the 1949 San Francisco ambiance and is a sincere attempt to produce a worthwhile police action genre piece. Just go along for the fast action (sometimes quite violent) and good acting. You won't be disappointed in "Chinatown at Midnight" if you don't expect depth or anything classic.

Disappointing B

[bnwfilmbuff · 5/10 · 15 April 2017]

Even though it's a programmer I still expected better with this cast. Actually they do a good job with the limited material. Hurd Hatfield was a very good actor and he does not disappoint as a thief that fences the goods through Jacqueline deWit's interior design shop. There's no motivation for Hurd's behavior - doesn't appear to be money or love. Tom Powers is the police captain and the only guy with brains on the force. Jean Willis has a throw away role but does manage to look good. It doesn't make a lot of sense but it still manages to keep your attention.

"Sometimes I wonder how you guys get your pants on in the morning without someone to help you"

[hwgrayson · 6/10 · 24 February 2024]

A surprisingly good film. It is mainly a police procedural but it is fleshed out with interesting characters. There is Hurd Hatfield as Clifford Ward, a sociopathic thief who has no compuction in killing people. He suffers with the effects of malaria which makes him incapable at times but at other times he is like steel. Leading the police team after Ward is the grumpy Captain Brown played well by Tom Powers. His team is also well portrayed by the actors. The movie has a sympathetic view of the Chinese people, either as victims of crime but also active in helping to catch the killer, particularly Maylia (aka Gloria Fong) as the switchboard operator Hazel Fong. (Nothing to do with the plot but she does look lovely in silk pyjamas.) In support too are familiar and welcome actors like Benson Fong, Victor Sen Yung and Byron Foulger. Henry Freulich's cinematography adds atmosphere to the movie, whether location shooting on the streets or in capturing interestingly lit interiors.

The only downside to the film is the constant narration throughout which wasn't really needed.

Grade Z cops-and-robber with some points of interest and unintended humor

[meaninglessname · 4/10 · 26 May 2017]

There's this white guy holding up stores in San Francisco's Chinatown for objets d'art. He prepares by learning Chinese phrases for tourists from a phonograph record. After he steals a valuable vase by the clever ploy of shooting the clerk he sees a young woman in the next room phoning the police, so he shoots her, then gets on the phone and tells the operator, in Chinese, "a robbery at Wing's store, call the police."

Why does he need to learn Chinese to perform stickups in Chinatown? Why does he report the crime to the telephone operator? Why does he do it in Chinese? Did the language course really include the Chinese for "a robbery at Wing's store, call the police"?

If you think the film is going to answer these questions, you are going to be disappointed. And this is only the first few minutes. Nearly all the actions of police and crook throughout the remainder are equally illogical or counterproductive. Moreover the film was so low-budget that long stretches are a silent movie with voice-over narration.

In other words, this could well have served as Mystery Science Theater 3000 fodder. Since it didn't, why might you want to watch it? Old footage of Chinatown and other San Francisco neighborhoods. Brief appearances by two of Charlie Chan's number one (or two or three) sons, Victor Sen Yung and Benson Fong. You might want to laugh, of gag, at Hollywood stereotypes, both positive and negative, of Chinese Americans of that era. There's the usual pretty young Chinese American actress born fifty years too soon. The biggest surprise is the bad guy being played by Hurd Hatfield, just four years removed from the title role in MGM's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Hatfield never again attained Hollywood leading man status, but had a long and successful career. How he sank, even temporarily, to this low ebb is the film's real mystery.

But the main reason to watch is if you're into "so bad it's almost surrealistic." If you're an Ed Wood fan you'll probably enjoy this film.

Typical Cheaply Shot Katzman B

[boblipton · 4/10 · 12 July 2014]

Hurd Hatfield is pretty good as the just-doing-what-he's-doing cheap psychopathic hood, and some nice location shooting by Henry Freulich helps, but the usual Sam Katzman cast and editing errors are far too noticeable in this cheap noir set in San Francisco's Chinatown, where the pants pressers have Scottish accents and it may be after midnight at the top of a building, but it's bright mid day on the street.

Other methods that are used to keep production costs down include shooting most of the outdoor scenes wild, subplots that vanish and telling the story through narration. Within its the penny-pinching context, almost everyone pulls off a professional if not particularly distinguished job. You may wish to see this once, but you most likely won't feel the need for a second viewing.

A pretty poor script

[bensonmum2 · 4/10 · 9 June 2020]

Thug and thief Clifford Ward (Hurd Hatfield) knocks-off a shop in Chinatown to get his hands on a valuable jade vase. In the process, he kills two innocent store employees. The police start going through clues and Ward feels the heat.

Overall, I wasn't overly impressed with Chintown at Midnight. The acting is fine, the San Francisco locations add a nice touch of reality, Ward is an appropriately ruthless killer, and the final chase is nicely filmed. But there are so many "silly" moments, that I found myself laughing a time or two - not what you want out of a noirish police procedural. Here's a list of some of what I'm talking about, but please note - SPOILER WARNING:

1. Why say anything into the phone? You've just killed two people, why put the cops on your tail so quickly? Just hang-up the phone or, better yet, run away.

2. There's one scene where the police have Ward trapped in a dark building, This leads to a fairly intense shootout. Ward runs into an alley, ditches his gun and overcoat, and joins a nearby bread-line. The cops enter the same alley and don't so much as glance at the four or five guys getting dinner. What incompetence!

3. There are at least three (and maybe four) instances where the cops might have captured Ward without incident if they didn't rush into every situation like bulls in a china shop. Example - thinking they might catch Ward returning to his rooming house, the police decide to stake-out the place. Instead of quietly assuming their positions, three police cars come barreling from different directions and park directly in front of the house, all but blocking the street. Real subtle work. (This is the moment I actually found myself laughing.)

4. In the final shootout, Ward runs up some stairs toward the roof. A policeman is waiting for him. Ward tries to shoot but his gun is obviously empty. Instead of taking the now unarmed Ward into custody, the cop on the roof unloads on him with a tommy-gun. Talk about unnecessary force. But I suppose the writer and director wanted Ward to go out in a hail of bullets regardless of how ridiculous the circumstances.

There are more examples I could cite, but you get the idea. These "silly" moments really undo what was otherwise a tight, tense thriller. It was never going to be a great movie, but Chinatown at Midnight never had a chance with this script.

4/10

No frills entertainment from 1949

[ilprofessore-1 · 8/10 · 13 October 2019]

Well-made, typical 1949 B&W programmer from the B picture Sam Katzman unit at Columbia Pictures. Fast paced and no frills. Hurd Hatfield is suitably sinister as the bad guy. The effective music score is all stock. Eleven composers are credited on IMDB. The advent of television in the years to come was soon to end this sort of low-budget fare that all the major studios once made to fill out the double-feature bill. Contract director Seymour Friedman who directed 8 films that year does a more than competent job of keeping this 67 minute thriller moving.

Crime usually pays you back within 24 hours.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 27 April 2018]

This intriguing little B film noir reminds me of the more well known "The Killer That Stalked New York" which doesn't deal with a murderer, but the carrier of a deadly virus that could affect millions. In this crime drama, Hurd Hatfield is the nefarious murderer of the son of a Chinese antique dealer and his fiancee, killing them coldly in the midst of his stealing a valuable vase which he then has shipped out of town to sell to the sophisticated Jacqueline de Witt. His partner is the sultry Jean Willes who isn't above Hatfield's wrath, and in just 67 minutes, Hatfield creates enough pandemonium in the city of San Francisco to frighten every neighborhood. A Chinese phone operator is the key to helping detective Tom Powers find the killer who spoke to her right after she heard gunshots in Mandarin, and through some intelligent sleuthing, they determine that they are not looking for an Asian man. Hatfield gives a sly performance, perhaps not as calculating as he was as Dorian Gray, but every bit as deadly. The film is told through Powers' point of view as he explores the clues he gets from the residents of Chinatown which takes him to other neighborhoods as well. They even identify a building which withstood the 1906 earthquake. I really did feel like I was on the streets of San Francisco with the shadowy photography truly a character all its own. This keeps you glued throughout, although I wish for once in a crime programmer like this that the ending was altered so it didn't involve a shoot-out where the villain is cornered and comes out with guns a-blazin', leading to the obvious conclusion.

Great if you enjoy watching police procedural films.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 19 February 2019]

"Chinatown at Midnight" is ample proof that B-movies are not synonymous with bad movies. Despite its relatively low budget and a quick run time, it's a terrific film...great for anyone who likes see realistic police dramas.

Hurd Hatfield plays a very cold-blooded killer. During a robbery of a curio store in Chinatown, he not only murders the man at the counter but he goes into the back room looking for witnesses...and kills the woman there! And then, to throw the police off his trail, he calls in and reports the robbery...in Chinese! No, his character isn't even Asian...he just wants the police looking for someone who is! Obviously, this killer is not only a sociopath...but a darned clever one who leaves few actual clues.

Unlike many police movies of the era, the cops in this film are smart and work hard connecting the dots and figuring out what really happened. And, you get to follow their thinking and procedures...making it not just entertaining but educational. Well made...and such a scary and awful villain!