Chinatown at Midnight (1949)

Wonderful character development!

Boring, long, and too preachy.

A Disappointing Continuation

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

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.

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.

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.

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.