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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Midnight Life (film)

1928 film by Scott R. Dunlap, Joseph C. Boyle

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ6842699 ↗
Source-derived summary

Midnight Life is a 1928 American silent mystery film produced by independent Gotham Company and distributed by B movie studio Lumas Films. The film is based on a novel, The Spider's Web, by Reginald Wright Kauffman. It was directed by Scott R. Dunlap and stars Francis X. Bushman and Gertrude Olmstead. This film is preserved at the Library of Congress.

Editorial summary

“Midnight Life (film)” enters the record as 1928 film by Scott R. Dunlap, Joseph C. Boyle. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Midnight, Life and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1928—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1928-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Midnight, Life and film.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Midnight Life (film)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Midnight, Life and film provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6842699. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Midnight Life (film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Midnight Life (film) primary sources, Midnight Life (film) archive and Midnight research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Midnight Life (film)”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Midnight Life (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.