Mark Stevens and Edmond O’Brien play rather peculiar patrol cops in 1950 noir Between Midnight and Dawn. They served together in the Marines in the war, bringing back a grass skirt among their souvenirs. After the war, they both joined the force and somehow end up partnered. And they share an apartment, which raised my eyebrows. I wonder which one of them wears the grass skirt?
That’s not all it seems they intend to share, as they take radio dispatcher Gale Storm out on a date with both of them. I’m not sure what they have in mind, but nobody else seems to find this arrangement strange, not even her mother (Madge Blake), who seems to imply at one point that maybe Storm should “give the boys a break”. By that, did she mean put out? If this goes any further, would she got for being spit-roasted by the lads, or is the more of a double-penetration kind of girl?
We’ll never know, because actual crime interrupts this love triangle, with mobbed-up club owner Donald Buka being investigated for extortion, then arrest and tried. Alas, he escapes being going to prison, and goes on a rampage. At one point, he actually dangles a little girl out of a window several stories up. I wasn’t exactly rooting for the kid to survive, as her aggressively cutesy and excessively exuberant manner had to me checking IMDB in hopes her character’s middle name would be “Human Shield”.
We first see Stevens and O’Brien driving the city streets at night, hence the title. They investigate a stink bomb thrown through the front window of Tito Vuolo’s Italian restaurant. I never knew stink bombs were a real thing, and the message sent by using one seems to be more childish prank than serious threat. I picture it being spherical and with a thick fuse, like the bombs in early cartoons.
Our heroes know this is the work of Vuolo’s henchman Philip Van Zandt, so they take him into custody. Alas, Vuolo refuses to identify the man, so they have to let him go. The police were about to let Van Zandt go just when the mob lawyer shows up. I like the sergeant who says to the lawyer, “We don’t want him. We just had our jail fumigated.” That and, if the guy had been handling stink bombs, I assume they might want to fumigate him as well.
A gangster from out east arrives to muscle his way into Buka’s territory, starring a turf war which only adds to the officers’ workload. Maybe they will have to take a break from such crucial police work as breaking up fights between pre-teen boys, taking away Billy Gray and heavily freckled brother Tony Taylor is their squad car. The only funny line in the runtime is when Stevens says to Gray, “You say he’s your brother? He doesn’t look like you?”, and the kid responds, “I ain’t complainin’.”
There are some odd elements to this movie, though not enough to make it particularly noteworthy. We’ll see some of the same police station dispatch center footage that was later repurposed for The Night Holds Terror. It is strange setup, with a room full of people on phones, who then write notes which travel by conveyor belt to handlers in the center of the radio announcers. There are two actresses named Gale in this, and I surprised they both spell it that way.
But the center is Storm, Stevens and O’Brien, in a relationship so odd that I like to speculate this was the inspiration for the New Order song “Bizarre Love Triangle”. One additional element of this which confounded me is the trio is always going to Buka’s club, as if it is only one in what appears to be a city of considerable size. I guess these officers just really like supporting a known criminal.
Between Midnight and Dawn is middling noir, quirky enough to hold one’s interest, yet too distant from reality to be fully engaging. One last bit of trivia, it might have also been released under the title Prowl Car, which is what is what named when submitted for copyright registration. I’m thinking that, if they weren’t going to use it, then we have an excellent alternate title for Stephen King’s Christine.
Dir: Gordon Douglas
Starring Mark Stevens, Edmund O’Brien, Gale Storm
Watched as part of the Powerhouse/Indicator UK (region B) blu-ray box set Columbia Noir #3