Remember the Night

Dear Erica,

This romantic comedy/drama boasts a pedigree of top tier talent that just happens to include my favorite screenwriter, favorite stars and one of my newly favorite directors. Preston Sturges wrote and directed some of my all time favorite comedies, including The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and what I consider the best screwball ever made, The Palm Beach Story. This was the last movie he wrote before becoming a director, so the man at the helm on this picture was Mitchell Leisen. I just recently discovered this treasure, who also directed the magnificent Midnight and Easy Living (also written by Sturges). Leisen has a knack for directing elegant comedies that it's a shame he is not as well known as Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder. Perhaps that's because he was particularly adept at directing women that he was not always able to land the biggest male stars of the day.

Here his muse is clearly the lovely Barbara Stanwyck. She is hands down my favorite leading lady to ever hit the screen. Not only does she have the most beautiful face I have ever seen, she manages to bring warm qualities to the dastardly characters she was routinely given. In Remember the Night she is a street-wise kleptomaniac who gets caught swiping a bracelet from a posh department store just before Christmas. She ends up in the slammer awaiting trial, but the prosecution hopes to postpone the trial until after the holidays as not to allow sympathetic jurors sway the verdict in her favor.

And just who is the prosecuting attorney? Fred MacMurray, that's who. Yes, the same man Stanwyck would later star with in the quintessential film noir, Double Indemnity. MacMurray rarely gets his due as one of the most talented (not to mention handsome) leading men of the 40's. His eleven seasons on the insipid My Three Sons probably erased the impact he made in films, which is too bad because he's positively charming and any person in their right mind should have a mad crush on him. Stanwyck sure does in this movie, and out on bail she rides with him to spend Christmas with his family in Indiana. See, she had a dismal childhood so this Christmas of stoking the fire, singing around the piano, gift openings, barn dances...well, you get the idea.

Cliches like "you'll laugh, you'll cry" make me cringe, but were made for movies like this one. It's funny and touching, so I'll say it. You'll laugh, you'll cry. I promise.

Till next time,
Bradley