Night and Day *** (1946, Cary Grant, Alexis Smith, Monty Woolley, Mary Martin, Jane Wyman, Dorothy Malone, Eve Arden, Ginny Simms) – Classic Movie Review 3088

Cary Grant was not happy while making the intriguing though flawed 1946 Cole Porter musical biopic Night and Day, clashing often with director Michael Curtiz, mostly over a ‘weak script with lousy characterisations’.

With rumours abounding of Cary Grant’s own bisexuality (partly thanks to Kenneth Anger’s 1959 book Hollywood Babylon), the suave star is fascinating casting as Cole Porter in director Michael Curtiz’s intriguing though flawed 1946 musical biopic Night and Day. The film features several (around 20) of the best-known Porter songs, including ‘Night and Day’, ‘Begin the Beguine’, ‘You’re the Top’ and ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’.

There is a good story to be told here, but this bland fictional version of the composer’s life omits any mention of Porter’s homosexuality, with star actor Monty Woolley (as himself) playing the hero’s best friend instead of his lover as he was in real life. So instead what we get here is fictionalised biography of Porter’s days at Yale in the 1910s, his marriage, the heights of his success, and his riding accident.

Screenplay writers Charles Hoffman, Leo Townsend and William Bowers knew Porter’s life would have to be fictionalised, because there was no traditional rags to riches story and he was gay. Depictions of homosexuality were prohibited by film industry’s Production Code. Orson Welles is supposed to have joked: ‘What will they use for a climax? The only suspense is will he or won’t he accumulate $10 million?’

The acting is led by Grant’s game but uncomfortable performance (he has to seem to play the piano while actually singing ‘You’re the Top’ with Ginny Simms) and Alexis Smith’s stiff turn as his wife of 35 years, Linda Lee Porter. They are backed up by surprisingly indifferent playing throughout the cast and (appearing as herself) Mary Martin’s show-stopping ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’.

Just for once director Curtiz seems out of his depth with his material, but there is plenty of lovely music, though, and there is also gorgeous Technicolor cinematography by J Peverell Marley and William V Skall.

Grant sings several of the songs, making Night and Day the nearest he came to making a musical movie.

It is produced by Arthur Schwartz and Jack L Warner as executive producer, who paid $300,000 for the rights to Cole Porter’s best known songs, and planned a ‘big-budget extravaganza’ to celebrate Warner Bros’ 20 years of sound films. He paid Grant $100,000 and bought out his contract at Columbia Pictures for even more.

The music score by Ray Heindorf and Max Steiner was Oscar nominated.

Cary Grant was not happy. Rich, but not happy. Grant and Curtiz clashed often, mostly over a script Grant viewed as weak, with ‘lousy characterisations’, so much of it was rewritten at his request. Grant sometimes refused to act in scenes he thought poorly written, and he criticised other aspects of production. He recalled that Curtiz sometimes lost his temper to the point of completely losing his train of thought.

Production was held back by a 1945 strike of the Conference of Studio Workers representing set builders.

However, despite all the troubles, it rang at the cash registers. On a high budget of $4,445,000, the box office was $7,418,000 worldwide.

The cast are Cary Grant as Cole Porter, Alexis Smith as Linda Lee Porter, Monty Woolley as himself, Ginny Simms as Carole Hill, Jane Wyman as Gracie Harris, Eve Arden as Gabrielle, Victor Francen as Anatole Giron, Alan Hale Sr as Leon Dowling, Dorothy Malone as Nancy, Tom D’Andrea as Tommy, Selena Royle as Kate Porter, Donald Woods as Ward Blackburn, Henry Stephenson as Omar Cole, Paul Cavanagh as Bart McClelland, Sig Ruman as Wilowski, Mary Martin as herself, and Gordon Richards as Cochran.

The Cole Porter story is retold more frankly in De-Lovely (2004) with Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd.

Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927) is one of America’s first openly gay filmmakers. He has produced almost 40 short films since 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the Magick Lantern Cycle.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3088

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