Chinatown at Midnight (1949)

A pretty poor script,  9 June 2020

Thug and thief Clifford Ward (Hurd Hatfield) knocks-off a shop in Chinatown to get his hands on a valuable jade vase.  In the process, he kills two innocent store employees.  The police start going through clues and Ward feels the heat.

Overall, I wasn’t overly impressed with Chintown at Midnight.  The acting is fine, the San Francisco locations add a nice touch of reality, Ward is an appropriately ruthless killer, and the final chase is nicely filmed.  But there are so many “silly” moments, that I found myself laughing a time or two - not what you want out of a noirish police procedural.  Here’s a list of some of what I’m talking about, but please note - SPOILER WARNING:

1. Why say anything into the phone?  You’ve just killed two people, why put the cops on your tail so quickly?  Just hang-up the phone or, better yet, run away. 

2. There’s one scene where the police have Ward trapped in a dark building,  This leads to a fairly intense shootout.  Ward runs into an alley, ditches his gun and overcoat, and joins a nearby bread-line.  The cops enter the same alley and don’t so much as glance at the four or five guys getting dinner.  What incompetence!

3. There are at least three (and maybe four) instances where the cops might have captured Ward without incident if they didn’t rush into every situation like bulls in a china shop.  Example - thinking they might catch Ward returning to his rooming house, the police decide to stake-out the place.  Instead of quietly assuming their positions, three police cars come barreling from different directions and park directly in front of the house, all but blocking the street.  Real subtle work.  (This is the moment I actually found myself laughing.)

4. In the final shootout, Ward runs up some stairs toward the roof.  A policeman is waiting for him.  Ward tries to shoot but his gun is obviously empty.  Instead of taking the now unarmed Ward into custody, the cop on the roof unloads on him with a tommy-gun.  Talk about unnecessary force.  But I suppose the writer and director wanted Ward to go out in a hail of bullets regardless of how ridiculous the circumstances.

There are more examples I could cite, but you get the idea.  These “silly” moments really undo what was otherwise a tight, tense thriller.  It was never going to be a great movie, but Chinatown at Midnight never had a chance with this script.

4/10