User reviews

The sole reason to watch this B-movie is the cast of veteran actors which includes George Zucco and Leo Gorcey, and who give the material more care than it deserves.

The plot concerns the "now we see it, now we don't" game thats played with the corpse of a murdered man. The man was a notorious killer who had been missing for five years before turning up near a wax museum. I won't spoil what happens since despite all the flaws can be quite entertaining if taken on its own terms.

The film suffers from two problems. The first is a cheapness that, while not truly bad, makes the wax museum seem more like a cardboard dive then a real place. The other problem is that the script, while containing funny lines, moves everyone around in a rather awkward manner as if they had to fill out several sections of the movie until its time to move to the next location. Neither problem is deadly, rather they are annoying in the "If they just didn't do that this would be so much better" sort of way.

If you should see this on TV or on the bargain video rack, by all means venture to dive in, since while its not the best of its type, its pretty damn good thanks to the great cast.

***Major Spoilers*** With free-lance hit man Jelke, George Zucco, tracking down his quarry diamond thief Peter Bernett, George E. Stone, from Uruguay South America to a mid-town Manhattan hotel he surprises and guns him down when he answers the door. Taking $250,000.00 in diamonds that Barnett had on him Jelke goes to call a cab to have Barnett's body taken and later dumped, by Jelke, in the East River.

There's also an alert for a New York gangster Joe Wells who's been either dead or on the lamb for five years and the state is willing to pay $5,000.00 to find and prove who he is, dead or alive. You see both Peter Barnett & Joe Wells are one and the same person. Wells badly hurt from being shot by Jelke struggles to his feet and staggers across the street from his hotel to the Last Gangster Wax Museum and collapses and dies.

Later girl reporter Sue Gallagher, Ann Savage, finds the dead Wells on the museum staircase and hides it so that she can later get the reward for proving that the elusive Joe Wells case has finally been solved. Unknown to her and the police and Sue's friends Jelke has a lot more to gain if Joe Wells stays lost then they do in having him found. Humorous crime/drama about a stiff, Joe Wells, who stiffed everyone looking for him by getting stiffed and hidden in the car trunk of police let.Max Hurley,Don Beddoe, who's been in charge of finding the stiff for five years.

George Zucco seems too refined and sophisticated to be a hoodlum in the movie, he's much better playing mad doctors and scientists. There's also that expert in the proper use of diction in the English language Leo Gorcey, Clutch Tracy, in the film playing an attendant at the wax museum who shows us how he can magically make a lighted cigar butt last for over an hour which was the length of the movie.

After Scared Stiff, Ann Savage played the feminine lead in Midnight Manhunt, in which she is relentlessly put down by charmless William Gargan – not one of my favorite leading men by a long chalk. David Lang's script is one of those affairs in which a collection of not overbright characters get themselves involved with murder and missing jewels on the flimsiest of pretexts. As a time filler, this little "B" is overladen with dialogue but still plays with reasonable celerity, thanks more to the sterling efforts of an A-1 support cast led by Leo Gorcey and Charles Halton than to any input from dull, relentlessly plodding, over-emphatic direction from co-producer William C. Thomas (of the Scared Stiff Two-Dollar Bills).

There's no denying that this B-feature has its flaws, but it's kind of fun to watch. It's a crime drama with plenty of comic relief, with a solid cast that does pretty well with a story that could easily have fallen apart. The production is strictly low-grade, but they tried to make up for it in part with a lot of offbeat sets and dimly-lit scenes.

The story reminds you of Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry", since most of the plot concerns the trouble caused by an inconvenient corpse. It's not, of course, as good as a Hitchcock movie, and its implausible aspects are not masked the way they would be in a better production, but it still gets some decent mileage out of the premise.

Ann Savage does well as a young reporter trying to sort things out. She has the strong presence that she showed in noir features like "Detour", while this time being much more sympathetic. George Zucco strikes an appropriately menacing tone, and Leo Gorcey adds some entertaining comic relief.

This is a good movie to watch when you just want to pass a pleasant hour or so with something entertaining that does not demand careful attention, and when you are prepared not to be too critical. With the right expectations, it actually works pretty well.

Diamond-thieving gangster Joe Wells winds up dead in a gangster wax museum where the jokers who run it not only recognize him but also happen to be pals with a couple of rival crime reporters. The reporters want the scoop. The cops want the corpse. And the old man just wants to go home because he's "so tired." Leo Gorcey provides a bit of comic relief with malapropisms and a troublesome cigar. The reporters cooperate and betray each other as it becomes convenient, regardless of how many laws they're breaking or how much danger they're in.

The acting is generally good, not great, but the direction is very stagy. With so few sets and so little camera movement, this could easily be a stage play. It's the kind of movie where people tell each other to stop beating their gums and to go soak their heads, offer each other stiff drinks, and light a lot of cigarettes.

The killer's explanation of why he hasn't just fled is ridiculous. And the shenanigans with the corpse are just bizarre.

Made in 1945 by Paramount's reliable Pine-Thomas "B" production company, MIDNIGHT MANHUNT is a model of what a bottom-of-the-bill programmer should be. It reminds me of the best PRC productions of the 1940s, with a mix of comedy, mysterious atmosphere, clever plot twists, and a colorful supporting cast. Leo Gorcey is given the same kind of malapropism-laden dialogue he had as a Bowery Boy; George Zucco is menacing and mysterious as only he can be; Ann Savage, of DETOUR fame, is perfect as the brash newspaperwoman; familiar faces such as Ben Welden, Don Beddoe, and Charles Halton pop up; and leading man William Gargan has always been reliable as a square-jawed, tough leading man, both in film and on radio. There's as much comedy as mystery, and both work successfully. The result is an hour of clever entertainment that represents the best 1940s "B-movie" entertainment. The plot involves a missing corpse of a mobster, but it's just something on which to hang a series of comic and mysterious elements. A great way to kill an hour on a rainy day.

Ann Savage and William Gargan star as rival newspaper reporters in this wild murder comedy complete with wax dummies, a wandering corpse, dumb cops, and George Zucco at his sinister best.

Leo Gorcey is very funny as a helper and general chatterbox at the Last Gangster Wax Museum. He toys around with the electric chair exhibit and tosses off a fair number of Bowery Boys-style malapropisms ("It's an optical delusion").

Zucco opens the picture by creeping into a hotel room, shooting a man and stealing a small case of diamonds; besides the mysterious Zucco and the adventurous reporters, police detectives Paul Hurst (dumb flatfoot) and Don Beddoe (harassed and exasperated lieutenant) are soon also attempting to track down the murdered man's body, which appears then disappears more than once.

A silly subplot concerns Savage and Gargan—a onetime romantic couple for whom, as Gorcey puts it, "the milk of romance slightly curdled." Gargan persists in disrupting Savage's efforts toward solving the case and landing the big story, for reasons that are less than clear; their conflict is supposed to be cute but is instead mildly irritating.

Overall, it's predictable but still very enjoyable; while the dialog may be lowbrow, it's still moderately clever, and good humor and energetic performances make up for lack of suspense and surprises. Good fun for fans of B movies—or any of these stars.

Odd, isn't it, how you'll rent or buy a minor title on DVD that you'd likely ignore if it appeared on, say, TCM? This obscurity at least looks promising: the cover's enticing - a hallmark of Alpha Video - and the cast features long-time low-rent bad guy George Zucco, Bowery "Boy" Leo Gorcey, and Ann Savage, the memorable harpy in the cult fave DETOUR ('45). The slight plot takes place at a decrepit horror museum - characters pass thru a wobbly turnstile constructed by shop class dropouts- and involves a corpse that assorted characters constantly move or misplace for silly reasons. For odious comic relief, they're dogged by a dimbulb detective who makes Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes. For a bare bones production, the players work hard. Zucco has never been slimier, and master language mangler Gorcey is good for some weak chuckles. The script, however, ain't exactly THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY ('55). With sharper dialogue, this might have made a decent farcial stage play, but the characters' casual attitude about handling the corpse is more distasteful than amusing.

Conventional Wisdom seems to indicate that this film retains some charm and entertainment value, in spite of its cheap jack budget, inconsistent tone, weak jokes and plot holes you could drive The Super Chief through (keeping with a 1940's reference).

I'll have to go along. This low budget programmer was entertaining to watch in spite of itself. Everyone in the cast seems to be having a good time in their roles, and giving their all in spite of what was probably a one week long production schedule. The plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but that's part of the fun of the whole thing. Leo Gorcey does his usual thing with the street-wise attitude and a malaprop polysyllabary. My favorite Gorceyism involves Ann Savage's character, who lives in a "flea-bitten dump" of an apartment above the wax museum where most of the plot unfolds. The hero says that she's "gone upstairs for the night," to which the Gorcey character adds, "That's right. She is retarded for the evening."

There are worse ways you could waste an hour, and Alpha Video sells many of them. This is one of the better flicks that they have scraped up from the bottom of the barrel. I would recommended it especially if you like Gorcey's malapropisms and the 1940's era "snappy" patois. You get plenty of "Why I oughta..." and "Say, what's the big idea?" You even get a character getting into a cab and spouting, "The Chronicle, Driver, AND STEP ON IT." I was waiting for one of the reporters to grab the telephone and holler, "Hold it chief, I've got an exclusive! STOP THE PRESSES!" or at least a paperboy hollering "EXTRY! EXTRY! READ ALL ABOUT IT!" Too bad I got cheated there, but this movie is a bit of fun, overall.

There isn't much to say about this one. It involves a body (which should be decomposing) being dragged around by a series of people. There are a couple of reporters who use absolutely no common sense in the process of trying to use the body to get a scoop. There's Leo Gorcey, playing the Bowery Boys character, with the malapropisms and the general insensitivity. George Zucco is running around, trying to get his hands on the body. Keeping a low profile probably would have protected him, but this doesn't occur to him. Everything is silly and far fetched and probably played well in a theatre on Saturday afternoon as a bit of escapist drivel in the forties.

This movie has all of the charm that makes old movies fun. Tough newspaper reporters compete with one another as they deal with a murdering villain and an arrogant police detective. I cannot recall seeing Ann Savage in anything else, but right away I liked her. She had the look and presence that should have made her a bigger star. Although she gets second billing in the credits, I think she is the star that really pushes the plot the most. Leo Gorcey adds a fun comedy element that keeps the movie bouncing along. The action starts at the very beginning and keeps building until the end. All the events take place in one night as the different characters are involved with finding, moving, hiding, and searching for a mobster's corpse. For what appears to be a B movie, the whole movie keeps up a steady pace for plot twists. If you love movies of the 40's in general this movie will be a pleaser.

Fast-moving mix of comedic nonsense and creepy thick-ear, of the sort popular at the time. Seems everybody's trying to find the corpse of gangster Wells and hold onto it. Competing reporters Willis (gargan) and Gallagher (Savage) are trying to out-scoop one another, that is, when not romancing. At the same time, bad guy Jelke (Zucco) wants to hide the body to cover for his stolen jewels, while the cops are trying to figure things out and poor Miggs just wants some sleep. Complicated? Yes, but in an entertaining, if crowded, programmer style. It's not a whodunit, rather we wait to see how all the conflicting interests will play out.

Apparently Gorcey's on leave from the East Side Kids, while furnishing his impudent brand of fractured English. Now if he can just figure out how to be a cool guy and light a cigarette. The wax museum setting is inventive, but someone should tell director Thomas that wax figures are not limber. Note too how much of the proceedings are filmed in half-light, probably to cover for the budget sets. For fans of statuesque Ann Savage, she shows a different side here from her definitive Detour (1945) spider woman. Happily, she also shows a lot of shapely leg near the end.

Overall, it's a fairly nifty little programmer with a brisk pace and a number of 40's familiar faces.

William Gargan and Ann Savage play a pair of reporters for rival papers who were once involved, but now are trying to top each other for a scoop involving the shooting of a man thought to be long dead. George E. Stone starts out the film as quite lively, but right at the beginning he's shot by George Zucco and then Stone has quite an odyssey once he doesn't have a pulse.

After being shot Stone staggers over and dies in a nearby wax museum that is run by Charles Halton and his loquacious assistant Leo Gorcey. As it happens Savage lives above the museum. Between Halton and Gorcey wanting to dispose of the body and Savage and Gargan trying to scoop the other this film gets pretty funny at times. And of course there's Zucco who wants the body for his own nefarious purposes.

Midnight Manhunt is a great example of some really creative people with little budget turning out a pretty good piece of entertainment. Those creative folks are the fabled B producing team of William Pine and William Thomas. Check this one out folks, you won't be disappointed.

This was the only film Leo Gorcey made outside of the East Side Kids series which would soon become the Bowery Boys after a year or so. He plays a worker at a museum that displays dummies of gangsters. The stars are William Gargan and Ann Savage as a couple of reporters mixed up in the mystery which takes place during one late night a murder takes place. I'll just now say this was quite a compact thriller with plenty of good humor to liven the proceedings. Among the players is someone from my favorite movie-It's a Wonderful Life, a Charles Halton-who was Carter, the bank examiner in IAWL- who has quite a lot of screen time here as the easily tired owner of the place! So on that note, I recommend Midnight Manhunt.

This one is rather boring and could have been better if they left out the lame comedy (mainly from Clutch Tracy) and turned it into a pure mystery-thriller!

This one really is "stagy" and seems to drag in lots of places. For me, the only parts that are somewhat good are with George Zucco and he's not in the film all that much it's mainly the other cast members that take center stage or should I say center "stagy"?! This one is a case of who has the corpse now and takes place mainly in a wax museum or Sue Gallagher's (Savage) upstairs apartment, which is above and within the wax museum.

The film is "okay" I guess but definitely NOT Zucco's nor Savage's best film - this might be their worst film or pretty close to it.

3/10

"A dead body is discovered in a wax museum and two rival reporters compete to break the story in this fast-paced, tough-talking crime caper. Renowned criminal Joe Wells is shot in his hotel room and stumbles into a wax museum, where office boy Clutch (Leo Gorcey) sweeps the floor and butchers the English language," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis, like he does in the "East Side Kid" movies ("I figgered this whole thing out by a process of mental reduction").

"Feisty reporter Sue Gallagher (Ann Savage) discovers Wells' body and rushes to file the scoop, but is interrupted when her part-time lover and news colleague Pete Willis (William Gargan) learns of the story. Tensions flare up even more when Wells' killer (George Zucco) corners Sue in search of the corpse, unaware that Clutch has found it and moved it out of the museum!" "Midnight Manhunt" wastes an interesting cast and setting in a careless execution.

*** Midnight Manhunt (7/27/45) William C. Thomas ~ William Gargan, Ann Savage, Leo Gorcey

I think they call them "films noir" for a reason: all you see on the screen is "noir", that is, the colour black.

Midnight Manhunt is a film in which a bunch of men, all dressed the same way, all wearing the same sort of hat, with their faces looking approximately the same, hovers around in the darkness through dim-lit passages, corridors and doorways. Which is a good thing, in a way, because it stimulates your imagination in trying to figure out what is really going on and devising the main lines of the plot. Plot which, in itself, is not a great one.

Apart for a 2 seconds' appearance of a prison guard, Ann Savage (as news reporter Sue Gallagher) is the only woman in the film. Acting not particularly noteworthy, in my opinion. If you are a fan of those kind of films, as I am myself, you should watch it. If not, better skip it.