Midnight Limited (1940) User Reviews

"He's the Phantom. He don't need no lights".

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 29 December 2011]

Well if you watched the picture, you know who the train robbers are, just like I know who the train robbers are. However I'm going to have to admit something here - I don't know how the heck Valentine Lennon (John King) figured it out, even after he explained it to Miss Marshall (Marjorie Reynolds). How did he get from Point A to Point B to know it was Krantz (Monte Collins) in the baggage car that was in league with the Phantom Robber (I. Stanford Jolley)? Folks, this is bugging me.

Up until the ending, I thought this little programmer had something fairly clever going for it. The desk clerk at the Ritz Plaza calling the plays was a pretty creative way to set up the train heists. But what about the guy they called The Professor (George Cleveland)? Except for the coincidence of being on the same runs on which the robberies occurred, that whole business with delivering the letters to Montreal was just a red herring. Am I missing something here?

I have to say, I was a little surprised to see John 'Dusty' King in a leading role in this picture. I'm more used to catching him teamed up with Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune as one of The Range Busters, a popular cowboy trio of the era. And if I had to bet, the last time I saw Marjorie Reynolds she was portraying Peg Riley in the old 'Life of Riley' TV series opposite William Bendix. Now there's a memory. Tell you what, dispense with the story and just leave Miss Reynolds on screen for the hour and I'd be just as happy.

At some point, I think I'll have to go back and see what I missed here. The resolution to the mystery is still nagging me, so there must be a missing piece of the puzzle. When I figure it out I'll get back to you. Or better yet, if you figure it out, drop me a line.

Lots of talk and "motion" don't add up to much of a mystery.

[dbborroughs · 4/10 · 26 January 2008]

While on a train trip to Montreal a woman is robbed of some valuable papers and man is robbed of some jewels by a man who comes in the night and shines a light in their faces. The robber then disappears off the train and into the night. The woman, needing the papers to collect an inheritance goes to the police. who then direct him to Val Lennon, who is investigating a rash of robberies on the train. The woman hooks up with Lennon and they begin to look into the robberies, which soon turn deadly.

Almost coldly clinical, even if the film has some romance and a musical number, this film didn't really work for me. The film is much too talky for an hour long mystery (The interrogation scene early on seems to go one for an hour instead of 5 or 6 minutes) and there are times when very little actually happens despite "movement" (how many trips are actually made?). It also doesn't help that the script seems to clue us in as to whats going on much too early simply as a means of keeping us interested. The cast, of B movie and supporting stalwarts is quite good, though they seem to be simply running back and forth needlessly instead of actually solving a mystery.

You can try it if you catch it on TV but otherwise I'd skip it.

Marjorie Reynolds is the only reason to see this movie

[kidboots · 5/10 · 29 April 2009]

Marjorie Reynolds was a bright, vivacious leading lady, who could also sing. Her career high point was co-starring with Bing Crosby in "Holiday Inn" (1942) and "Dixie" (1943), but she dressed up any movie she was in no matter how cheap the production.

Joan Marshall (Marjorie Reynolds) is traveling on the Midnight Limited, a night train from New York to Montreal. She hears a scuffle in the next compartment and when she goes to investigate is also robbed by "The Phantom Robber"!!! She was robbed of papers that prove that she and her mother are the rightful heirs of a large estate but this plot goes nowhere. When she admits she had a glimpse of the robber she is immediately made a member of the police force (of course!!!) who are investigating the case. There are no surprises - it is obvious that the booking agent is involved after a gambler books a ticket on the train. It is well known that he is carrying $60,000 with him and surprise, surprise - he is robbed. Everything seems to fall into place for the viewer, long before the police figure it out!!!

John "Dusty" King is a very lack lustre leading man. I was so surprised to read that he was a band singer. At one point in the film he is sitting down at the piano and sings "Quiet Hands" - very badly I thought!!! I was wishing why couldn't Marjorie have sung - she would have really livened up the film.

Train robbers on the New York - Montreal run

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 29 November 2019]

John King one of Monogram's cowboy heroes got into modern dress as a railroad detective on the hunt for some robbers working the Midnight Limited from New York to Montreal.

It turns into a murder case when one King's men is killed. Marjorie Reynolds gets robbed as an afterthought. After that she joins forces with King.

Seems like this was a good plan that was only good for one or two scores. The crooks should have quit while they were ahead. Obviously there was an inside man.

John King even got to sing a song that wasn't a cowboy ballad.

Sets were cheap and shabby, some bad editing as well. Not the best mystery going.

has Monogram written all over it

[blanche-2 · 4/10 · 28 January 2017]

"Midnight Limited" was a 1940 B film out of Monogram - well, I suppose writing Monogram and B film is the same thing. It stars John King and Marjorie Reynolds.

What to say about the plot...well, Reynolds is on a train when the compartment next door is robbed of $75,000 in diamonds, and her papers that prove she and her mother are entitled to an estate are taken when the perpetrator sees her looking out her door.

She gets a fair look at him and insists on helping the lead detective (King) find the criminal.

There were scenes in this film that were absolute dead space - like the interrogation of the crew and passengers - a 61-minute movie and that part alone seemed like 61 minutes.

It also seemed to me that the police could have done a better job of rounding up this guy faster.

Then it was over. Pleasant cast, with the always lovely Marjorie Reynolds who had better things ahead for her. Well, there really was no place to go but up after this.

Definitely one of the lesser set-on-a-train movies

[Handlinghandel · 5/10 · 9 November 2007]

This is a far cry from "The 39 Steps," which preceded it, or "Twentieth Century." That one also came first but of course is a hilarious comedy with a great, brilliant performance by John Barrymore; it's not a mystery.

Marjorie Reynolds is appealing as the heroine. John King makes a good investigator. Then he opens his mouth and sings. "The Singing Detective" this also is not.

The dialog is strangely wordy and improbable in many cases. People have been given real mouthfuls to speak. But the plot is a decent one. It moves along nicely. And I had no idea who the villains were going to turn out to be. Usually I can either tell or I've got lost in too many characters.

Here, though, the characters are nicely delineated. And the ending comes as a surprise. At least it did for me.

Good but not a thriller!

[orzobino · 7/10 · 3 July 2005]

This movie was interesting but a little corny at times( when Val sings) They had to cram a lot in 61 minutes. the movie's movement had a little Dragnet to it.."just the facts'. The police characters seemed a little stiff and the mechanics of the railroad police etc was not very believable.( Adding Majorie to the force just because she said she would help) The addition of Willie the conductor was a nice a piece but the dialog with him was too simple and not as comic relief as it could have been... Majorie Reynolds was good and you can see her potential...remembering her as the wife to Chester a Riley is quite easy..The plot was good and could have been developed better but...All in all a good investment of your time far better that reruns on TV.....

Aside from the setting, it's another B-mystery movie.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 31 July 2018]

In the 1930s and 40s, there were at least 6,000,004 B-mystery movies made...or so it seems. It was one of the most popular genres and while there were some excellent ones, the rest mostly fall in the category of Time Passers....and "Midnight Limited" is one such time passer.

The film is set mostly on trains, where a criminal genius keeps robbing folks of huge sums of money...and the police seem powerless to stop this. However, Val ('Dusty' King) promises to solve the case.

Dusty King was an actor known for B-westerns and action movies. In other words, he was pretty good at punching folks and the like....but wasn't the most charismatic or sexy actors. In fact, in this one he seems incredibly ordinary. He couldn't help it...he just wasn't a strong leading man type for this sort of film. Add to that the rather cheap look of the film and you've got a film that isn't bad...but isn't all that good either.

Even at 61 minutes, this train runs behind schedule!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 1 July 2008]

By the humble standards of Poverty Row, this is a fairly intriguing mystery offering, despite a script that often seems to be marking time rather than getting on with the plot. A major fault here is that none of the leading characters are so much as "filled in", let alone developed. At movie's end, we know as much about the leading man as we did at the beginning—namely zilch. True, a more appealing hero than John "Dusty" King would have certainly have helped. Edward Keane—in a rare, major role—proves no great shakes either.

The heroine is also little more than a cypher, but fortunately she is so charismatically played by charmingly vivacious Marjorie Reynolds that our almost total lack of any knowledge at all as to her likes and dislikes, her background and personality, seems not to matter. True, the script stratagem that cements her into the plot is most obtrusively unconvincing, but nonetheless I'm not complaining on this score. What does upset me is that an opportunity for a first-class little "B" has been thrown away by inadequate scripting.

Another minus is that all the exterior train footage is so obviously stock material—and rather ancient stock material at that! This lessens the movie's appeal for train buffs. And the usual racist "humor" with the eye-rolling porters doesn't help matters either. Tighter film editing was certainly called for. Any volunteers?

Quoth The Raven 'Excelsior!'

[boblipton · 4/10 · 26 February 2019]

A fiend robs passengers on the train, then gets away. One of the victims, Marjorie Reynolds, saw the man, but no one will listen to her until she goes to the office of John 'Dusty' King, who's in charge of the department and agrees to let her help them in their investigation because otherwise, it would all be Mr. King declaiming his speeches like the boy stood on the burning deck. Miss Reynolds and the other actors are at least adequate when Mr. King is not around, but anytime anyone is in a conversation with him, suddenly they sound like they're telling him that curfew shall not ring tonight. Mr. King was not just a bad actor. He made other actors, good ones, bad.

It's surprising because the director of this movie was Howard Bretherton. He was not a great director, but he was among that brotherhood who graduated from the editing booth. He could turn out a cheap feature quickly and usually make them pretty watchable. Such directors rarely shot scenes that would be removed by the editor; the skill was called 'cutting in the camera'.

Against actors who can't speak in any way that makes sense, the best director struggles in vain. While Bretherton toiled mostly in B Westerns, he was on his way up from here, first to Republic and then Columbia. He would retire from the Big Screen in 1952, spend a few years directing TV and die in 1969, aged 79.

This ain't no great train robbery.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 26 August 2016]

George Cleveland, self proclaimed "professional traveler", well known reputation for "expert drunk", is the only key (or clue) to the identity of a phantom robber who seems to know which train passengers are carrying around large sums of money. Detective John King joins forces with robbery victim Marjorie Reynolds to find out who is committing these horrid hold- ups which seem to be related to something than more than just ordinary robberies. Cleveland, playing more eccentric than buffoon, emulates the heavy high class accent of Sydney Greek street. Out of nowhere, King gets a song, setting up romantic subplot between King and Reynolds. No real surprises in this low budget thriller that isn't as thrilling as it makes a claim to be.

Tedious

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 25 October 2019]

MIDNIGHT LIMITED is a very cheap crime thriller from the notorious Monogram Pictures studio, who were never known for spending much money on their movies. This one sees a villain called the Phantom Robber going around on a train and separating people from their valuables; when murder is added to the list of his crimes, the authorities act. Despite the short running time, a lot of this verges on tedium, with long stretches of dialogue adding little to the story.