AFTER MIDNIGHT
starring Norma Shearer and Lawrence Gray
MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE
November, 1927
This picture didn't' receive very good reviews in New York,
but, the critics in Cleveland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt
Lake City and other cities seemed to regard it as entertaining.
Louella Parsons, writing in the Los Angeles Examiner, is
of the opinion that Norma Shearer, as the cigarette girl who falls
in love with and reforms a young holdup man, played by Lawrence
Gray, makes an inconsequential role full of possibilities. The
Salt Lake Tribune ventures to say that "After Midnight"
gives Miss Shearer more than a usual opportunity to appear beautiful
and wear gorgeous gowns. Donn Krull, reviewing in the Los Angeles
Herald opines that fans will like Miss Shearer in this
film for many reasons, chief of which is that her personality
radiates to great extent as she portrays a wide range of emotions.
The Cleveland Press finds the subtitles "rather clever."
But, to let the New York critics have their say, we find that
Langdon W. Post, writing in the Evening World, calls the
picture "worse than bad." Mr. Post believes that Lawrence
Gray is the best part of the picture and that Miss Shearer has
little to do but look pretty. The Herald-Tribune is not
alone in branding the picture as slow moving, having this to say:
"It has its excellent moments and it is never particularly
terrible, but it is undeniably slow moving, full of ancient devices
and generally lacking in story." Expressing her views in
the Post, Wilella Waldorf believes that most of the story
is "really quite dull and senseless" and that in spite
of the fact that it has its better moments, especially when Miss
Shearer is on the screen, it is generally "tresome in the
extreme." The Sun's reviewer, John S. Cohen, Jr.,
state that "as in so many well intentioned, well acted, well
photographed films, there are not enough dramatic conflicts, not
enough situations or plot outline to hold the interest."
Most of the reviews seem to regard the scenes showing the dancing
girls as diverting. Gwen Lee's performance comes in for praise.