Midnight Mary

Plot

Loaned to MGM by her home studio of Warner Bros., Loretta Young suffers her way through the title role in Midnight Mary. A good girl led astray, Mary (Young) endeavors to save the life of her boyfriend Tom (Franchot Tone) by killing the aptly named Leo the Rat (Ricardo Cortez). As her case is heard in court, the clerk goes over Mary's record, and at this point the flashbacks begin, stretching all the way back to her days as an unwanted orphan. One bad break leads to another, and by the time she reaches adulthood Mary is mixed up with a gang of crooked gamblers. For the sake of Tom, a well-connected socialite who loves her unquestioningly, Mary tries to go straight, but her past, and the ill-fated Leo the Rat, catch up with her. No matter what disaster befalls her in Midnight Mary, Loretta Young always manages to look as though she's just stepped out of a beauty salon. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Review

At one point near the beginning of William Wellman's Midnight Mary, a down-and-out Loretta Young passes by a marquee advertising a Joan Crawford movie. An apt reminder indeed that this kind of romantic gangster melodrama masquerading as social commentary was in many ways pioneered by Crawford. Joan must have been otherwise engaged, however, and MGM instead borrowed Loretta Young from Fox. It didn't much matter; Mary Martin of Midnight Mary is yet another unfortunate victim of circumstances, a little more vulnerable, perhaps, due to Young's kinder, gentler interpretation, but it is still more or less the same Mary that had appeared on countless screens in the early '30s. Franchot Tone (soon to be the husband of Joan Crawford, incidentally) played the inevitable rich boy in his usual insouciant manner, while Ricardo Cortez, borrowed from Warner Bros., remains his tough-talking self. Also borrowed from Warner was cinematographer James Van Trees, but somehow the gutsy attitude of that studio is absent. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Cast

• Loretta Young - Mary Martin
• Ricardo Cortez - Leo Dary
• Franchot Tone - Tom Mannering
• Andy Devine - Sam Travers
• Una Merkel - Bunny

Frank Conroy - District Attorney; Warren Hymer - Angelo Ricci; Ivan Simpson - Tindle; Harold Huber - Puggy; Sandy Roth - Blimp; Martha Sleeper - Barbara; Charles Grapewin - Clerk; Halliwell Hobbes - Churchill; Robert E. O'Connor - Cop

Credit

Adrian - Costume Designer, William Wellman - Director, William S. Gray - Editor, Dr. William Axt - Composer (Music Score), James Van Trees - Cinematographer, Lucien Hubbard - Producer, Gene Markey - Screenwriter, Kathryn Scola - Screenwriter, Anita Loos - Short Story Author

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