The Midnight Lady

Mother love, mystery and murder mingle in this dramatic tale of a notorious speakeasy hostess courageously taking the rap for a murder she didn't commit.

Nita St. George can be hard as nails on the outside but she takes a strong maternal interest in Jean Austin, the beautiful girlfriend of one of her patrons. Jean, whose mother disappeared when she was a baby, finds herself mysteriously drawn to the older woman. Nita witnesses Jean leaving the scene of a fatal shooting and jumps to the wrong conclusion, She allows herself to take the fall to protect the young woman to whom she has grown so attached. How can justice prevail when an innocent woman is CONTENT to serve time?

The Midnight Lady was Poverty Row's answer to the era's major-studio soap operas (such as the perennial favorite Madame X) featuring noble older women for whom no self-sacrifice is too great where their children are concerned. Midnight Lady gives us the often uncredited minor player Sarah Padden who shines in this rare opportunity to flex her acting muscles and tug at the heartstrings.

MIDNIGHT LADY is a low-budget variation of the evergreen stage and screen meller MADAME X. In one of her rare starring roles, Sarah Padden is cast as Nita St. George, the hard-boiled owner of a big-city speakeasy. Unexpectedly, Nita is reunited with her daughter Jean (Claudia Dell), who has been raised to believe that her mother is dead. When Jean is accused of murdering her no-good boyfriend, Nita selflessly takes the blame, never letting the girl know that she is really her mother. Just when it looks as though Nita will be convicted of murder, Jean is tricked into a confession -- but as it turns out, she didn't do it either! Unfortunately, this not uninteresting poverty-row drama is laid low by bad camera work and uneven acting.