tt0029238.mp4
Midnight Court (1937)
Directors
Stars
Midnight Court
Overview
Down-and-out Victor Shanley, a former district attorney, is arrested during a raid of a skid row dive. He is arraigned in the night court where his former wife, Carol O'Neil, is a court reporter. After he gives a long speech against people who support corruption in government, Vic passes out. Carol takes him home and cleans him up. She tells him he drinks because he is a coward who is afraid to face defeat. Vic responds that since being on the side of right does not pay, he plans to work for criminal boss Al Kruger and become a prosperous criminal attorney. Sobered up, Vic successfully defends Bob Terrill, a young man who became an auto thief for Kruger because of poverty. Vic then tricks the star witness in a murder trial and gains an acquittal. In spite of his continuing success, he has not lost all interest in doing good deeds. He offers to pay Bob's tuition so that he can study aeronautical engineering and end his life as a thief. Although Vic cautions him not to tell anyone of his plans, Bob tells Kruger, who arranges for Bob to be killed. When Carol learns of Bob's death, she tells Vic he is responsible. Believing that she is correct, Vic quits his job. When Kruger's stolen car ring is raided, Vic is made special prosecutor. He bluffs the criminals by claiming that Bob kept a record of the numbers of the cars he painted. When it appears that Vic is winning in court, the gangsters pull their guns and are killed by the police. Now that he has "gone straight," Vic asks Carol to come back and she agrees.
Midnight Court Film Details
Overview: Victor Shanley had once been New York City’s most-acclaimed crime-fighting, crusading District Attorney and the scourge of the underworld. But the workaholic demands of the job led him to …
Tagline: A DOWN-and-OUT LAWYER, by DEFENDING A RACKETEER and HIS MOB, MAKES A COME-BACK TO FAME
Review: ***SPOILER*** Disbarred disgraced and long forgotten former District Attorney Victor Shanley, John Litel, ends up in a skid row ginmill, Joe’s Place, that just happens to the the headquarters of big time gangster Al Kruger, William B. Davidson, who by twisting arms in the justice department put him there. Despertely needing cash to support his drinking habit Shanley take the job of being Kruger’s mouthpiece, shyster lawyer, in order to get back at the justice system that destroyed his professional life. It’s when Shanley’s ex-wife Carol O’Neill, Ann Dvorak, a court clerk spotted her drunk and barley conscious former husband at Judge Fredrick J. Thompson’s, Joseph Crehan, courtroom where he was on trial for vagrancy that she took him home to get himself something to eat and a place to seep it off. All cleaned up and with a new set of clothes Shanley goes on a six month winning streak in the city courts getting Kruger’s hoods off from being convicted with his skillful manipulating of the city court system. It’s later when one of Kuger’s men working in his car theft department the young and innocent Bob Terrill, Carlyle Moore Jr, decided to call it quits,in Shanley paying for his collage tuition in becoming an aeronautical engineer, that Kruger has him set up to be knocked off because he knows too much about his criminal operations. With Kruger’s right-hand man Slim Jacobs, Stanley Fields, offering Terrill a lift to the train station he murders him and drives his car, with Terrill in it, down a 200 foot embankment to make Terrill’s murder look like an accident! ****SPOILERS*** Finally realizing what he got himself into Shanley follows his ex-wife Carol’s advice by quitting the Kruger crime syndicate but even goes one step farther in setting a trap for Kruger & Co. in getting them convicted for Terrill’s murder! The big showdown comes in Judge Thompson’s courtroom with Shanley, now working for the D.A’s Office, tricking Slim Jacobs into admitting under cross examination that he was the person who gave Bob Terrill, after he murdered him, the last ride of his life! Wild and crazy final where pandemonium breaks out in the courtroom as Kruger’s hoods together with a gun toting Slim Jacobs try to hijack the proceeding, by making their escape, only to be out-gunned and outnumbered by the police who got there just in the nick of time to put the cuffs on them!
Country: USA
Language: English
Duration: 63 min
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Also known as: Midnight Court,Justice After Dark,Justiça à Meia-Noite,夜間裁判
