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Excellent film with a gripping story!

Excellent but underrated film

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Jacqueline Logan was one of the most beautiful of silent stars but because too few of her films are available, when any are found it is cause for rejoicing. This film, now fully restored was one of a group found in 2010 at a New Zealand film archive.Jacqueline had tried her hand at many things - she had been a reporter, a model, even a Ziegfeld Follies girl before movies called. She was a popular second level leading lady who had been cast opposite many of the top male stars of the day. Clive Brook, in 1928, was heading towards his peak years in Hollywood but for "Midnight Madness" Jacqueline got top billing!! Norma Forbes is a "bachelor girl with a bachelor boss - and hopes"!! Having to put up with a layabout father who often takes her pay for drink, as well as living at the back of a shooting gallery, she needs her dreams to become a reality fast!! She sees her future with her boss but instead he turns out to be a first class "I'm not the marrying kind" heel who encourages her to play up to wealthy diamond mine owner Richard Bream (Clive Brook) in order to find where his claim is. At first she refuses but an afternoon spent at "home, sweet home" makes her desperate!!With Richard it is a case of love at first sight and he wants to take her to Africa the next day as his wife!! "It's madness"!! she says and it is - midnight madness!! Holy Mackerell - the next day when she sees her chiselling boss it is as Mrs. Bream. "From now on I'm travelling first class" and "He'll spend his money on me and like it"!! - the only problem is, Richard overhears. And decides to teach his wife a lesson!! Travelling second class, instead of jewels and furs - she gets a fruit basket!! - marriage isn't what Norma expected and she hasn't even arrived in the God forsaken country yet. She is convinced that Richard is a miser. As she puts it "second class, a flivver - and now this gorgeous love nest"!! She tries to flee but Richard thinks of everything - even to removing the car's spark plugs!! Then they have guests - it is Norma's boss Childers (Walter McGrail) - she had cabled him earlier to come and rescue her!! When he believes that Bream is actually poor, he wants nothing more to do with Norma, however when the lascivious overseer eyes her shapely legs and the bottle of whiskey he is all for taking her with them!!It is cleared up very quickly (59 minutes) and involves a marauding lioness and a twinge of humanity that Norma hasn't shown in the whole length of the film. F. Harmon Weight was so obviously a hack director, you only have to look at his credits and it also explains the very pedestrian and lack lustre direction of this movie. Not great for Clive Brook who was almost at the top of the acting tree in 1928 to be given such an uninspired director. Not wonderful but any Jacqueline Logan movie is better than none at all!!

Jacqueline Logan wants to marry her boss, diamond broker Walter McGrail. When he asks her to seduce secretive diamond miner Clive Brook for the location of his mine, she reluctantly agrees. Then Brook proposes to her, so she decides to enjoy life as his wealthy wife.However, Brook overhears her telling her boss off and decides to teach her a lesson. He installs her in a shack beside the pit instead of his mansion and things get off to a rocky start.It's not just that this "teach 'em a lesson" show lacks the jokes of TAMING OF THE SHREW or that it is shot so obviously cheaply that makes this sixty-minute programmer so unappealing. Miss Logan, who was a beautiful and capable comedienne is directed in an unappealing fashion -- by the time this Petrucchio is halfway through taming his Katherine, you feel sorry for her. Not Miss Logan, who is sullen throughout, until the miraculous ending.This was one of the last features released by the Demille Picture corporation before Cecil shrugged his shoulders and sold out to Pathe and Joseph Kennedy. Although the company produced some appealing features, the growing public disdain for silent movies and the attending great expense of refurbishing for sound meant the end. RKO Pictures, which grew out of Kennedy's combination also produced some uninspiring pictures like this one, but they had production, distribution and theaters to make money in. Demille didn't. He went to work for MGM for a couple of years and then back to Paramount, where he had the facilities to turn out blockbusters.