The Midnight Story

This Martini is shaken but not stirred.

The Midnight Story (AKA: Appointment With A Shadow) is directed by Joseph Pevney and written by Edwin Blum and John Robinson. It stars Tony Curtis, Marisa Pavan, Gilbert Roland and Jay C. Flippen. Music is by Joseph Gershenson and CinemaScope cinematography is by Russell Metty.

When a San Francisco priest is murdered, friend of the priest, Joe Martini (Curtis), a traffic cop, gets a hunch and ingratiates himself into the family of the man he thinks is responsible.

Somehow it has become one of those 1950s black and white crime movies entered into film noir publications. It doesn't belong in that particular filmic chest, but it does ask to be sought out by fans of such 1950s fare. In actuali...

Tony Curtis is a keen San Francisco cop ("Joe") who is convinced that the killer of a local priest is none other than local crab fisherman "Malatesta" (Gilbert Roland). There's no evidence, though, and that man has a fairly cast iron alibi. His boss "KIlrain" (Ted de Corsia) tells him to forget it but he can't, so he quits and with a bit of off-the-books help from his sergeant "Gillen" (Jay C. Flippen) he sets out to ingratiate himself with his suspect. Against all the odds, they actually start to bond, and after a short while the older man suggests that "Joe" moves into the family home where he fits in well with "Mama" (Argentina Brunetti) and takes a bit of a shine to the tempestuous daughter "Anna" (Marisa Pavan). The longer he associate...