Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

bkoganbing Between Midnight And Dawn refers to the graveyard shift that patrol car cops Edmond O'Brien and Mark Stevens are on where for some dead time a lot of action is happening. Most of it generated by a vicious local hood played by Donald Buka. O'Brien and Stevens really have it in for him, but that's nothing compared to how Buka feels about these two always cramping his style.When some out of towners try to muscle in on Buka's rackets that starts a gang war. Most gang bosses have people on the payroll to take care of the dirty work, but Buka likes to get in on the action himself. That proves to be his undoing.While all this is going on O'Brien and Stevens have a good natured rivalry for Gale Storm going on. Of course one of them does get her, but that's far from the whole story.O'Brien and Stevens are fine as the cops, but Donald Buka probably got his career role as the vicious hood who is their nemesis. Some kudos should also go to Gale Robbins as the nightclub singer who is Buka's girlfriend. She finds out too late what a bad taste in men she has.Between Midnight And Dawn is one good cop drama from Columbia Pictures that still holds up well for today.

sol ***SPOILERS*** One of the first films that depicts police partners has squad car Officers Rocky Barnes & Dan Purvis, Mark Stevens & Edmond O'Brian,and the problems that's involved in their both private and professional lives. The movie also has the cute and talented singer, even though she doesn't sing a note throughout the entire film, a pre-"My Little Margie" Gale Storm as police dispatcher Kate Mallory who's dad a police officer was killed in the line of duty five years ago. It's Kate who gets between the two police partners and eventually ends up marrying one of them.It's both Barnes & Purvis' attempts to put part-time night club manager Ritchie Garris,Donald Buka,behind bars that in the end turns out to be deadly for them. In the two not realizing what a outright and maniacal psycho the guy really is. It in fact was out of town hood Leo Cusick, Ronald Winters, who set the deranged Garris off by muscling into his territory that started an all out gang war with Cusick ending up getting the worst of it.Captured in a wild car chase by both Barnes & Purvis Garris is convicted and given the death penalty for the murder of Leo Cusick but as we soon see that he has other plans. Escaping from the prison infirmary Garris sets his sights, or gun sights, on both Barnes & Purvis who had him put away. Gunning down Barnes who had since married Kate Mallory Garris ends up hold up in his girlfriend nightclub singer Terry Romaine's, Gale Robbins, apartment together with the supernatant's 9 year old daughter Kathy, Lora Lee Michael, held as a hostage.**SPOILERS*** Adrenaline driven final sequence with Purvis busting into Terry's fifth floor apartment. from the window ledge, with a teargas canister and having it out with the by now totally crazed and murderous Ritchie Garris. It was in fact Terry whom Purvis slapped around earlier in the film who ended up saving his neck by taking not one but three slugs meant for him by Garris. As for Garris he ends up getting blasted by Purvis and ironically as he falls down a flight of stairs he leaves his hand print on the wall covered with blood! That obviously meant to be, by the films director, all the blood that Garris had on his hands in the life of crime that he lead.P.S Actor Donald Buka as the psychotic hood Ritchie Garris made a name for himself two years earlier as the snarling knife wielding psycho Shivvy in the movie "The Street with no Name" which incidentally also starred Mark Stevens as an undercover FBI Agent.

chipe I found this movie to be very enjoyable to watch. There was no masterful overriding story, but it moved along at a good pace, was quite genial and had no faults. It might be called an early "procedural" in today's lingo: lots of radio squad car scenes, beaming messages in cop talk back and forth, well photographed auto chase scenes and shootouts. The directing, script, acting and cinema-photography were superior. In the movie the cops were all righteous and the criminals all incorrigibly bad. Three things stood out for me, favorably: (1) I was always a big Gale Storm fan, stemming from my childhood watching of "My Little Margie" re-runs on TV (Gale was the co-star of the TV show, and part of the romantic triangle in this movie). (2) The repartee was often witty and jocular and never off-putting. For example, on an early date, Officer Rocky Barnes (played by Mark Stevens) is having his first dance with Gale Storm, and, holding her tightly he says, "I've been waiting a long time for this." She replies, "I can believe it. I feel a rib cracking." He responds, "Oh, control yourself, Barnes. This lady's got to last." (3) The relationship between the two police partners (Stevens and Edmond O'Brien) was friendly and jocular. It was nice to observe their respect for each other. Both were quite competent. O'Brien was the more serious, cynical and hard on criminals. Stevens was more relaxed and sensitive to criminals' feelings.

Rathko An American Cinematheque presentation at The Egyptian.B-movie, second-feature that plays as a cross between classic noir and serial melodrama. As such, it's easy to see how it's often credited with being a predecessor of the police procedural.Stevens and O'Brian play two likable LAPD patrol cops. Gale Storm the wholesome new dispatch girl who keeps their attention at night. Most of the movie deals with the growing and affectionately written romance between Stevens and Storm, making the whole thing seem at times like a vintage episode of 'Payton Place'. But make no mistake, we're in noir territory, and it's only a matter of time before we're dealing with gangsters, their molls, heartbreaking tragedy and small children being held from eighth floor windows.The leads are so charismatic, and the writing so sharp, that it's almost impossible not to like this film. Another little post-war gem of a movie.