"Between Midnight and Dawn" is like two different movies awkwardly slapped together into one.
For the first half, I was praising the movie for a crisp screenplay that finds cop buddies Mark Stevens and Edmond O'Brien vying for the affections of the new dispatch girl. Ok, so it's a little creepy that they both rent the apartment right next door to her so that they can more easily stalk her, but hey, this was the 50s, so what's romance without a little sexual harassment to go with it? But they're both winning, and the film is lighthearted and funny. Then mid-way through, a major character dies, which I was not expecting, and after that the film transitions into dark revenge territory. It also gets quite brutal and graphically violent for the time. A character gets shot in the head, you see bloody bullet holes actually appear in another, blood gets smeared on walls. Fairly extreme considering this was made at a time when characters in other movies like this would get shot without any apparent physical damage and then fall into a bloodless heap.
I liked it and thought it was a pretty entertaining noir, even if by the time it's over it feels like it's been all over the place. And I enjoyed the cinematography in this one, especially some POV shots from inside a patrol car while it cruises the dark streets that look like something out of "Taxi Driver."
Grade: A-
For the first half, I was praising the movie for a crisp screenplay that finds cop buddies Mark Stevens and Edmond O'Brien vying for the affections of the new dispatch girl. Ok, so it's a little creepy that they both rent the apartment right next door to her so that they can more easily stalk her, but hey, this was the 50s, so what's romance without a little sexual harassment to go with it? But they're both winning, and the film is lighthearted and funny. Then mid-way through, a major character dies, which I was not expecting, and after that the film transitions into dark revenge territory. It also gets quite brutal and graphically violent for the time. A character gets shot in the head, you see bloody bullet holes actually appear in another, blood gets smeared on walls. Fairly extreme considering this was made at a time when characters in other movies like this would get shot without any apparent physical damage and then fall into a bloodless heap.
I liked it and thought it was a pretty entertaining noir, even if by the time it's over it feels like it's been all over the place. And I enjoyed the cinematography in this one, especially some POV shots from inside a patrol car while it cruises the dark streets that look like something out of "Taxi Driver."
Grade: A-