Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in Remember the Night, 1940.
We continue our survey of the greatest movies from each decade.
Here’s Part One, in which we cover the era of silent movies.
Part Two, 1930 – ’33.
Part Three: 1934 – ’37.
Part Five: 1940′s, His Girl Friday.
We continue with the 1940′s, Hollywood’s last great era.
Remember the Night, 1940. The first trick in screenwriting is setting a consistent tone for the film. Audiences want to know just what kind of movie they’re watching. It is then the director’s and actor’s jobs to interpret and correctly modulate the screenplay’s tone.
But every once in a while, along comes a film that defies this conventional wisdom. Remember the Night is just such a film. It is best described as a romantic comedy-drama, a cinematic hybrid.
The plot is simple, elegant and irresistible. Lee Leander, played by Barbara Stanwyck, gets arrested during Christmas for shoplifting. Assistant District Attorney John Sargent, Fred MacMurray, is set to prosecute her. The trial is postponed and rather than let Stanwyck spend Christmas in the slammer, MacMurray offers to drive her home for the holidays. Complications ensue, and Stanwyck ends up with MacMurray’s family for Christmas.
It’s a great set-up. But the shifts in tone are startling. When MacMurray witnesses Stanwyck’s mother rejecting her daughter in the most cold-blooded terms, it’s absolutely heart breaking. And it has to be for it provides the perfect motivation for MacMurray’s rescue of this beautiful and tragic criminal. At the same time, the detour and car crash sequences, leavened with a nasty farmer and a crooked small town judge, are played very broadly and for yuks.
Preston Sturges wrote the script. This was his last film as screenwriter before moving into the director’s chair. It is worth noting that Sturges, a huge fan of silent comedy, especially Harold Lloyd, displayed the same penchant for slapstick in his very best films. Gags which, all too often, fall flat, for they seem to come out of another movie, and in a sense, they do. Think of Henry Fonda’s endless prat falls in The Lady Eve, or Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake falling in the swimming pool in Sullivan’s Travels. These awkward comedy sequences severely break tone in otherwise masterful films.
In any case, Sturges had a beautiful one-line capsule of Remember the Night, “Love reformed her and corrupted him.”
Naturally, this movie is a love story—Avrech’s rule: All great movies are love stories—but the resolution is a bit darker than the normal comedy.
MacMurray and Stanwyck are best known for their work in the film noir classic Double Indemnity, a masterpiece of plot, style and tone. But it is in this film that their chemistry was first ignited. MacMurray specialized in playing good-guy Joes. And Stanwyck was expert as the good-bad girl. On the set for the entire shoot—Mitchell Leisen directed—Preston Sturges got to know Stanwyck and recognized her potential as a comedic actress. He told her, “I’m going to write a screwball comedy for you.” And he did, The Lady Eve, just a year later, a film of which I will be writing in this series.
Remember the Night is a story of crime and punishment, forgiveness and redemption, a deeply touching love story, and a first-rate Christmas movie.
Let’s watch Stanwyck and MacMurray fall in love:
Most memorable quote, Stanwyck as Lee Leander: “One of these days one of you boys is going to start one of these scenes differently and one of us girls is going to drop dead from surprise.”
Remember the Night is available on DVD.
To be continued next week.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
9 Comments
I love this movie, and I’m so glad you did, too. Reportedly, Sturges wrote that it “had quite a lot of schmaltz, a good dose of schmerz and just enough schmutz to make it box office.”
I’ve always considered this movie to rather the inverse of “Double Indemnity,” in which the characters’ conspiracy is enobling rather than damning, their attraction is expressed in true love and sacrifice rather than lust and betrayal, and in the end they are “redeemed” by honesty rather than condemned, though to the viewer that solution is jarring. You’re right to note the changes in tone: the city folk are all jaded and wisecracking; the country folk are ingenuous and sweet. In each locale, however, there are characters examining each others’ motives, and projecting their own inclinations (for good or ill) on the others. Only two lovers’ confessions to each other provides understanding and resolution.
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This has been mentioned before but growing up in the 50s I typcasted MacMurray as the father in “My Three Sons” – but he was quite a star before that.
I loved her in Ball of Fire.
I like movies that take you to unexpected places – unexpected turns in the road, as it were. They are few and far between.
And who couldn’t fall for Barbara Sranwyck, shoplifter or not?
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Robert, my daughter is teaching a high school film class and while she is not surprised that none of the students know who Preston Sturges is, none of the adults at the school have a clue either. Mention Sullivan’s Travels to them and they think you are mispronouncing the new Jack Black movie.
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Barry:
Thanks for the correction.
That’ll teach me to check filmographies before pushing the publish button.
The Man Who Came to Dinner is a tame drawing room comedy. I’m talking about the ability to do challenging screwball roles. Davis was a unique and brilliant actress—great voice, great diction—but she basically did the same thing over and over again: Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, The Little Foxes, Mr. Skeffington, roles all cut from the same template.
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Ann Sheridan did I Was A Male War Bride. Davis did The Bride Came C.O..D. And, isn’t The Man Who Came To Dinner a comedy…? Admittedly, her part isn’t front and center, but she did do it, along with a few others.
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K:
You are so right. The ending and resolution are just beautiful. I remember the first time I saw this movie I was stunned. And I was baffled as to why this was not a better known film. I think it’s one of the best movies evuh.
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What really impressed me about this movie was the resolution of the final hook – how was she going to “get off” from the charges without destroying his career? I have to admit I was completely taken by surprise – likely due to it being so unlike anything now.
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Johnny:
Among my Hollywood friends, Preston Sturges has reached G-d like status. We all understand that in his prime he was the best. His downfall was tragic and quite rapid.
Fred MacMurray is one of those “dependable” leading men who are taken for granted, but his range was impressive.
Barbara Stanwyck was the best. Film lovers drool over Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, but those two stars were very limited. They could not do comedy. Davis did one, I Was a Male War Bride, and you can sense her disconnection in every frame. Crawford, in the thirties, was quite remarkable, but Mildred Pierce locked her into a specific image from which she never veered and really, it got boring.
Stanwyck could do anything and everything and she did it on the first take. She was always on time, always knew her lines and the crews loved her.
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Another great thing about this movie, like a lot of great movies from this era, are the supporting roles played by Sterling Holloway and Beulah Bondi.
And it’s too bad the film was not in color for the scene at Niagara Falls.
Sturges, Stanwyck and MacMurray are three of the most underrated people in the history of film. Was there ever anyone better than Sturges at slipping things past the censors? Stanwyck’s range should make every actress working today cry. And MacMurray, despite the image he has from Disney and My Three Sons, could play a low-life amoral human better than anyone as he did in DI, Caine Mutiny and The Apartment.
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