utgard14 Somewhat stagy drama about a jury foreman (O.P. Heggie) who's very strict on law & order convicting a woman of murder and sending her to the chair. Everyone seems to be upset with the juror, including the press and his family. Of note today only because Humphrey Bogart's in it. Unfortunately he has a small part. It's not a bad film of its kind. Heggie is certainly a quality actor. Top-billed Sidney Fox plays his daughter, whose story is where Bogie fits into things. The rest of the cast is okay, with Henry Hull being the most remarkable. It's a movie that obviously has points to make about capital punishment and the legal system not being fair for all. But it's a bit creaky and drags and kind of falls on its face in the final act. Worth a look for Bogart completists. Also of interest to O.P. Heggie and Henry Hull buffs. If there aren't any, there should be!

JohnHowardReid Midnight (1933) opens promisingly with the camera lovingly panning across numerous faces in a courtroom before settling on a nice close-up of Humphrey Bogart. Unfortunately, from here on, our interest takes a gradual nosedive – especially when we discover that Bogie's big climactic scene is not going to be played on camera at all but simply reported to us by Miss Sidney Fox. True, it's not Sidney's fault that Bogie is wasted, but she herself is rather colorless in this one – and at least one of the two directors bypasses Sidney altogether and allows stagey O.P. Heggie to collar the limelight. But it's Helen Flint's movie. In the small but vital role of the condemned murderess, she is utterly convincing. Available on a superb Image DVD. Incidentally, this is a 1933 production. The movie was produced independently and shown to various distributors before being picked up by Universal in 1933; and Universal was mostly interested because they had Fox under contract. Universal applied for the copyright in 1933, and said copyright was granted to Universal on January 2, 1934.

sddavis63 Humphrey Bogart receives top billing in this film, which is somewhat surprising since he actually isn't in the movie all that much. He plays a man named Gar Boni, boyfriend of a woman (Sidney Fox) whose father (O.P. Heggie) was the foreman of a jury that convicted a woman of murder and had her sentenced to death. On the night the woman is due to be executed, the family gathers with friends who all try to convince Weldon (the father) that he should intervene to prevent the execution. (How a jury foreman would intervene at this late date is never answered.) He refuses, only to have his daughter stumble into the house, announcing that she's killed Gar. Weldon then has to decide whether to protect her or turn her over to the law.All things considered this movie hasn't aged particularly well. The acting is mediocre and the story of Weldon's daughter killing Gar on the same night the woman Weldon's jury convicted is to be executed is just too neat and tidy and contrived. No doubt this deserves some credit for tackling a controversial subject, and the movie seems to be an early example of advocating leniency for women who kill men who are unkind to them. Still, simply tackling a difficult subject isn't enough to make a bad movie into a good one. Fans of Bogart will be both interested and disappointed in this one: interested because it represents a look at one of his very early roles and disappointed because it's such a limited one. The other disappointment, of course, will be that this is really such a poor movie. 3/10

Gary Brumburgh Based on an original Theater Guild production entitled "Midnight" (which is what the title of this movie was upon its initial release; it was later re-issued as "Call It Murder"), the interesting though far-fetched premise has a staunch, law-abiding jury foreman (O.P. Heggie) who once swayed a jury into giving a woman (Helen Flint) the death penalty for killing her boyfriend in an act of passion, now finding the same scenario rearing its ugly head in his own personal life. Unfortunately, this piece of hokum (which desires to call itself film-noir but I beg to differ) is woefully melodramatic and never finds any kind of selling point or payoff. What could have been a strong examination on the subject of capital punishment simply dissolves into a superficial piece of claptrap with indifferent directing, bad production values, overbaked acting, and a movie that moves at a snail's pace. As most of the proceedings happen in the home of the foreman, the whole movie has the claustrophobic feel of a staged play.As mentioned in other reviews posted, the package re-issued "Call It Murder" spotlights Humphrey Bogart as the star, but his part is at best a featured role. However, even in this secondary bit of casting, he easily outshines and outclasses the rest of the principals. Bogie, in his pre-stardom days, plays Gar Boni, a gangster about to go on the lam, who takes up with the jury foreman's daughter (Sidney Fox) and unknowingly ignites the deja vu proceedings.The movie sags and wilts any time Bogie isn't on screen. It also shows why he was a star in the making. His brief scenes, in which he both comes on to the girl and then gives her the brush off, are indicative of the style and 'stuff' that would make him a legend.However, there is simply nothing else to recommend. A tormented stentorian O.P. Heggie (later the hermit in "Bride of Frankenstein") gets to grandstand outrageously on his , and poor quivery-voiced Sydney Fox as his daughter and Bogie's overly smitten girlfriend falls into the sea of melodrama hook line and sinker. On a sad note, this proved to be one of Fox's last ingénue roles. Her career quickly disintegrated and she eventually committed suicide. The rest of the cast fails to register or inspire one way or the other.The movie goes from bad to worse when it takes a highly implausible Perry Mason-like twist at the end right in the living room. Well, suffice it to say, its all for naught. What might have been a better way to go would have been to throw out the script and focus instead on a Helen Flint's Death Row dame a la Susan Hayward in "I Want to Live." It might have made for better viewing.