Midnight (1918)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | midnight |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1918 |
| length | approx. 82 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | EA Dupont |
| script | EA Dupont |
| production | Star movie |
| camera | Max Fassbender |
| occupation | |
| |
Midnight is a silent German detective film from 1918 by EA Dupont with Max Landa and Reinhold Schünzel in the leading roles.
action
Master detective Max Landa writes a letter to his old friend Harry in which he reports on one of his interesting cases.
In the center of the action was a mutual friend of the two, the reporter Dick Tillinghaft. He had visited him, Max, and excitedly reported that the second wife of the Attorney General Edmund Trevor had been found dead in his spacious safe. The perpetrator stabbed her. Since the police logically assumed a crime, Landa started his own investigation. In addition to part of a letter opener, a ring with the initials “DG” was found in the safe at the scene of the crime. Other characters were "Anacostia 1908". In fact, the investigation revealed that there was a corvette captain named Donald Gordon at the Anacostia Military Academy. He was the fiancé of Trevor's daughter Beatrice, who is said to have not got on well with her stepmother. Landa found out that the dead woman had sent Gordon a letter and summoned him to visit her at midnight, the time the police determined as the time of the crime. While the police were quick to believe that they had caught the murderer in Gordon, Max Landa had doubts.
The master detective went on to say that he wanted to pursue other leads and soon came across Trevor's private secretary Alfred Clark, who was behaving strangely and had had a large sum of money since the time of the crime. It wasn't until Beatrice's friend, the sought-after young Peggy MacAllister, that things got started. The much-admired woman offered herself to the man who would help her to prove Donald Gordon's innocence. Dick Tillinghaft was interested in the handsome young lady and was accordingly involved in this case. In Tatraum he discovered the appendage of a clock that belongs to the ominous Count Dorian Morny. But even this track turned out to be wrong, as Landa discovered. Rather, he found out that only a certain Count Alexander Smyrnow could have murdered the dead. His motive: he was the father of the first husband of the murdered and blamed Mrs. Trevor for the death of his son. As a result, there was a violent argument between the two, which Mrs. Trevor did not survive. The perpetrator judged himself in the end, and Dick was allowed to lead Peggy to the altar, even though he was theoretically wrong in the search for the perpetrator - not Morny, but Smyrnow was the owner of the watch tag.
Production notes
Midnight was written in June 1918, had five acts and was 1,690 meters long. After the censorship bill in August 1918, the strip received a youth ban. The premiere took place on August 30, 1918 in Berlin's Tauentzienpalast .
When Anneliese Halbe it was the daughter of Max Halbe .
criticism
“Max Landa is no longer Joe Deebs, but himself. […] The fact that he lets the horrific events end with a chord of humor is a particularly fine trait and reveals his special note. The excitement of the audience should be alleviated so that the gravity of the impression of what has just been experienced falls away and a sigh of relief takes its place. All roles are cast to the best of our ability. [...] All in all a detective piece that, despite the much-used topic, has a highly interesting effect. "
Web links
- Midnight in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Midnight at The German Early Cinema Database
- Midnight at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Neue Kino-Rundschau of September 13, 1919, p. 23.