Midnight (1934)

Every expense has been spared with this truly mediocre crime drama. A woman is accused and convicted for murder, but as the evening before her comeuppance draws near, the foreman of the jury "Weldon" (OP Heggie) is being solicited to try and stop the execution. Quite what he was supposed to do is anyones guess, and so justice takes it's course. The plot, somewhat glacially, now moves on to a woman "Stella" (Sidney Fox) finding herself in a very similar situation - pleading a defence of crime passionnel. Guess what, though... she is the daughter of the aforementioned jury foreman. She has been charged with killing the rather unsavoury "Gar Boni" (Humphrey Bogart). Can she escape the same fate? The dialogue is delivered as if each were being individually cued, and despite his billing Bogart features hardly at all in what is otherwise a rather weakly directed and presented sob story in which I had no investment. Early talkie maybe, but all in all it's pretty unremarkable stuff.