Remember the Night **** (1940, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi) – Classic Movie Review 5205

‘The BAD girl and the GOOD boy who went to Niagara Falls…before their wedding! ‘

Producer-director Mitchell Leisen’s 1940 romantic comedy drama Remember the Night stars Barbara Stanwyck as Lee Leander, whose shoplifting trial is delayed over Christmas, and the sympathetic prosecuting district attorney John Sargent (Fred MacMurray) who takes her to his mother (Beulah Bondi) and family for the holidays in the country. There they fall in love, so what do they do about the trial?

The sparky chemistry between the two feisty stars and screen-writer Preston Sturges’s good-humoured, exquisitely written tale produce a winner, a most amusing and satisfying vintage mix of comedy, drama and romance.

Also in the cast are Elizabeth Patterson, Willard Robertson, Sterling Holloway, Charles Waldron, Paul Guilfoyle, Charles Arnt, John Wray, Virginia Brissac, Spencer Charters, Chester Clute, Fred ‘Snowflake’ Toones, Thomas W Ross, Tom Kennedy, Georgia Caine and Fuzzy Knight.

It is a rematch for Leisen and Sturges (in his last film as screen-writer before he became a writer-director), who had worked together on 1937’s Easy Living. Lee tells the judge her name is Mary Smith, the name of Easy Living’s lead character.

Stanwyck and MacMurray paired up again most memorably in Double Indemnity (1944). They also co-starred in The Moonlighter (1953) and There’s Always Tomorrow (1956).

Leisen replaced Marjorie Main with Georgia Caine as Lee’s mother when he thought her performance was too broad.

The portrait of the man with the crossed eyes is also used in Stanwyck’s film Ball of Fire (1941).

Remember the Night is directed by Mitchell Leisen, runs 93 minutes, is made and released by Paramount Pictures, is written by Preston Sturges, is shot in black and white by Ted Tetzlaff, is produced by Mitchell Leisen, is scored by Frederick Hollander, and is designed by Hans Dreier and Roland Anderson.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5205

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