The unforgettable Christmas night
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The unforgettable Christmas night |
| Original title | Remember the night |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1940 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mitchell Leisen |
| script | Preston Sturges |
| production |
Mitchell Leisen , Albert Lewis for Paramount Pictures |
| music | Friedrich Hollaender |
| camera | Ted Tetzlaff |
| cut | Doane Harrison |
| occupation | |
| |
The unforgettable Christmas night (or also: The unforgettable night , original title: Remember the Night ) is an American tragic comedy from 1940 with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray . The film was directed and produced by Mitchell Leisen , while Preston Sturges wrote the script.
action
New York City in the run-up to Christmas: The petty criminal Lee Leander is caught stealing a bracelet from a jewelry store. The successful young prosecutor John Sargent, who specializes in indicting women, is taking on the trial against Lee. In the trial shortly before Christmas, however, it was not Sargent but Leander's defense attorney Francis X. O'Leary that attracted the sympathy of the jury through his theatrical appearances. The defense attorney claims that Lee was hypnotized by the sparkling sight of the diamonds and that he took the bracelet out with him while he was absent. Because the jury is always particularly sentimental and compassionate before Christmas and is more inclined to acquittal, prosecutor Sargent uses a trick to postpone the verdict until after Christmas. Because of the adjournment, Lee now has to spend Christmas in jail, but John feels sorry for her and pays the bail so that she can be released. However, Lee has no place to stay. By chance, John and Lee discover that they are both from the same rural Indiana area . John wants to spend the holidays with his family, so he offers Lee to take her to see her mother.
The first problems arise while driving: in Pennsylvania , they drive off the road with John's car at night, destroy a fence and end up in a cow pasture. The next morning, the enraged farmer takes Lee and John to a local judge who wants to try them both quickly. They can escape, however, as Lee starts a fire in the judge's trash can. Lee is nervous about meeting her mother, as the two of them haven't seen each other in years and have had constant arguments in the past. In fact, the mother welcomes her daughter with noticeable dislike and reproaches her for an old theft. So John decides to take Lee to his own family. This consists of John's widowed mother, Mrs. Sargent, unmarried Aunt Emmy, and the quirky farm worker Willie. Lee experiences the new feeling of a loving family here. Aunt Emmy gives her various cake recipes and her old dress for a ball while Willie and John play the piano with her. She attends various Christmas events in the village with the Sargents. Lee falls in love with John, who reciprocates her feelings. After New Year's Eve, John and Lee have to return to New York. Before that, John's mother talks to Lee, because she knows how they feel about each other and knows about Lee's past. John grew up in poverty and had to work hard for his current success, so Lee shouldn't endanger John's career through a rash love affair.
On the return trip through Canada (to avoid Pennsylvania) John gives her a chance to escape, but she refuses. John continues to try to prevent Lee from being convicted and deliberately wants to lose: he is noticeably harsh with her in court, so that the jury will find him disagreeable and feel sorry for her. The judge in New York, however, suspects a love affair between the two and informs John's superior about it. To prevent damage to John's career and to take responsibility for their actions, Lee declares himself guilty, much to the incomprehension of John and defense attorney O'Leary. She is being led away, the verdict is still pending. John still wants to marry her. She agrees to the marriage in case he will still love her when she gets out of prison.
background
The screenplay for the film was written by comedy specialist Preston Sturges , who initially suggested Great Love as the title . "Love converted them and corrupted him," Sturges summarized his script. As a director of the film was Mitchell Leisen committed to the 1937 with the comedy My Life in Luxury (in the original: Easy Living ) one Sturges screenplay was filmed. There are several allusions to this previous collaboration in the film: One can hear the song Easy Living in the background in a scene , Stanwyck also gives "Mary Smith" as a false name in front of the village judge - the name of Jean Arthur's character in Mein Living in luxury . However, before and during the shooting, Leisen changed Sturges' script, and several passages were shortened. This was so angry that he decided to film his own scripts from now on. Also in 1940 was Sturges' directorial debut The Great McGinty , which was the prelude to a whole series of highly successful Sturges comedies until the mid-1940s.
Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray appeared together in three other films up to 1955, including the film noir classic Woman Without Conscience by Billy Wilder . Sturges, too, was so convinced of Stanwyck's acting that he hired her a year later for his film The Cardsharp . The shooting took place from the end of July to the beginning of September 1939. Eight days before the scheduled end of shooting and $ 50,000 below budget, Leisen was able to finish his shooting, which he attributed primarily to Stanwyck's professionalism.
Reviews
Remember the Night was a hit not only at the box office, but also with critics. Frank S. Nugent , the chief film critic of the New York Times, wrote in January 1940: “It is a memorable film, of ambition and quality, blessed with an honest script, good direction and impeccable presentations. It may be a little early in the movie season to talk about the best 1940s movies; but it's not too early to say that Paramounts is worth considering for that. (...) Remember the Night is a drama presented in the simplest human terms of comedy and feeling, tenderness and magnanimity. ”In December 1939, the film magazine Variety also praised the actors and the script, in which“ brilliant situations ”and“ skillful narrative styles ”would occur.
Today's reviews are mostly positive, with about all seven Rotten Tomatoes reviews being positive. Leonard Maltin saw the film as a "beautifully crafted, sentimental story" that would masterfully create a "very special atmosphere". The lexicon of international film , on the other hand, criticized the “Christmas sentimentality”, Remember the Night would undecidedly vacillate between “humorous comedy” and melodrama. Today it is difficult to bear and “only really entertaining in a few details”. Geoff Andrew contradicted this, saying that the film plays the main characters perfectly. Leisen made a film "full of warmth and style" that never drifted into excessive sentimentality. Dave Kehr praised Leisen's directorial work, noting that the “easy-going, elegant script” had a gentle and nostalgic nature that rarely appeared in Sturges' later films.
Web links
- The unforgettable Christmas night in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Background information and original cinema trailers at Turner Classic Movies
Individual evidence
- ↑ TCM article from "The unforgettable Christmas night"
- ↑ TCM article from "The unforgettable Christmas night"
- ↑ Review by Frank S. Nugent
- ↑ Critique of Variety
- ^ Criticism by Leonard Maltin at TCM
- ↑ The unforgettable Christmas night. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 3, 2017 .
- ^ Review by Geoff Andrews
- ^ Review by Dave Kehr