Remember the Night (1940)

Very best movie i ever watch

Pretty Good

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

What's not to love, a shoplifter goes on christmas break with the prosecutor who's trying to put her in jail, sounds like a pile of laughs, right? While they had terrific chemistry in Double Indemnity, in this film Fred Macmurray and Barbara Stanwyck are both pretty awkward and their timing is off. Scenes that should be laugh-out-loud hilarious are played for drama, and it just doesn't work. For example, the scene in the pasture as they're surrounded by cows could have been mined for a million laughs, but the director just lets it sit there, one among many wasted opportunities for real entertainment. The one moment of high drama that works, however, is when she goes back home to see her mother...where the audience expects a tearful reunion, the opposite happens, as mom proceeds to tear her a new one. It's a heart-wrenching scene, one that we can read on Stanwyck's marvelously expressive face. By the end of the film, after having spent the week with John's family, her character has learned some lessons about taking responsibility for her actions and finds some redemption.I found myself wishing that the pace of the film were a little faster, that the natural animosity between the characters had been more pronounced in the style of all mismatched buddy films, but this one is a romance trying to be a comedy, and not the other way around. In short, the film doesn't know what it wants to be, even the movie poster on IMDB is confusing: is it a comedy or a romance? Make up your mind.

OK I'll admit I had already enjoyed Fred MacMurray's and Barbara Stanwyck's acting on the own in other movies so I came in to this with anticipation. I was not disappointed. Barbara Stanwyck plays a shoplifter brought together in to court with Fred MacMurray as the prosecuting attorney against her. Well paced writing and great work from the actors and support cast. Two negatives for me, the treatment of Fred MacMurray's black valet is hard to watch, yes I get all the arguments about it was the 1940's but it is still painful. Also the opening defense lawyers soliloquy is about twice as long as it should be to get the point across. Past these two points the plot moves well in some moving was as we find out background in the two main characters past. Well worth a watch and very engaging.

Really laid back Christmas Eve-New Years Day holiday romantic comedy melodrama with the star power of a very comfortable Fred MacMurray and effortlessly charming Babs Stanwyck giving the material a major bump, even though Preston Sturges' original screenplay once again provides a discomforting treatment towards a highlighted supporting African-American character, this being a butler talked down to and presented as none too bright. I always had a problem with how Sturges presented black characters, and this film goes down that road once again. But when the film gets away from that it can be quite a cozy little holiday movie. MacMurray is a prosecutor who strategically convinces the judge to allow a pickpocket (Stanwyck) the week from Christmas Eve through New Years before her trial (she stole a bracelet from a jewelry store in New York City). The move was clever because he wanted to keep the jury from considering him a meanie for putting her through a trial during "the most wonderful time of the year". As serendipity would have it, the two wind up together during the holiday season (a bond paid by an associate of MacMurray's drops her off at his apartment!) and fall in love while on a road trip to his mother's home in Indiana (with an unfortunately melancholy stop at her hateful mother's house). MacMurray just seems at ease and wears the part like a comfy pair of loafers. Stanwyck is the kind of actress who can take a part in what is basically supposed to be frothy romance and reveal a wounded young woman MacMurray learns is an actual product of a cold and indifferent upbringing, waffling between allowing her emerging love for him to reveal itself and concealing it so his career won't be jeopardized (a favorite scene of mine has Stanwyck and MacMurray's mother talking about where he came from, the humble beginnings and the hard work to achieve what he has, and how if he allows his caring for her to usurp the accomplishments built over time it would be a detriment to a promising career, with admittance of love unveiled to no surprise) through the influence of their feelings for one another. What stood out to me in her performance is how she could just burst into tears (her glassy eyes often seem to gradually wet up but hold in place) during several moments but almost always maintains a resolve…it is only when she returns to mother's home, and is greeted cruelly does Stanwyck's character break down. MacMurray has a character so at peace in his own skin, that even when he faces possible criminal trouble (while on a joyride, he accidentally drives through a farmer's fence, parks in the farmer's field, and disturbs the farmer's cows; the farmer, with shotgun in hand, demands they drive into the town (outside NYC) to face a local magistrate for what he done, Stanwyck in tow), he is cool and calm…what makes this amusing is how Stanwyck commits arson to open an escape for them as the farmer and judge put out the flames! The visit to MacMurray's family (mother and spinster sister, and relative Willie) in Indiana presents them as solidly cohesive and warm towards each other, an exact opposite of Stanwyck's mother and stepfather in the nearest town not far distant in another county. A majority of the film takes place on Christmas Eve and Day concluding after New Year's Day…so it constitutes as a breezy 90 minutes of holiday fun. As 40s melodramas go, you can't beat the team of MacMurray and Stanwyck…a fascinating alternative to Double Indemnity. A key scene of hilarity has Stanwyck's defense lawyer laying on the theatre in regards to how his client was a *victim* not a criminal during that day's theft in NYC! It goes on for minutes! Stanwyck's unwillingness to allow MacMurray to lose his case at the end just emphasizes her redemption.

I was disappointed by "Remember the Night". Not that it is bad film – on the contrary, it is a good film. It is just that I was expecting a great film of the same quality as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street. Compared to these films, "Remember the Night" just does not have the quality of the story, the acting, the performances, the direction and the overall quality compare to the better known films of its era.For me, there are 11 classic Christmas films that I try, as best as I can, to find time to watch during every Christmas season. Generally, I think people use the phrase "classic Christmas films" to mean the best films of the genre made in the 1940s and 1950s. In my list of the top 11, I also insert three more "recent" films. They are, in order:1. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) 2. National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (1989) 3. A Christmas Carol (1951) 4. The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) 5. Miracle on 34th Street (1947) 6. The Bishop's Wife (1947) 7. The Homecoming, A Christmas Story (TV, 1971) 8. The Holy and the Ivy (1952) 9. Holiday Inn (1942) 10. Home Alone (1990) 11. Christmas in Connecticut (1945)I feel that "Remember the Night" falls into a second tier of classic Christmas films that include the following. The films in this list, I like to watch but not every Christmas and only after I have exhausted the list above:• All Mine to Give (1957) • Blossoms in the Dust (1941) • Bush Christmas (1947) • Holiday Affair (1949) • I'll be Seeing You (1944) • It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947) • The Miracle of the Bells (1948) • We're no Angels (1955)Overall, I like to divide Christmas into 4 sub-genres as follows: Golden Oldies (made before 1960), "Modern" dramas (made after 1969), Comedies (made after 1969) and Animated. My top films in each sub-genre are:Golden Oldies: as aboveModern Dramas (made after to 1969) 1. The Homecoming, A Christmas Story (TV, 1971) 2. Joyeux Noel (a. k. a. Merry Christmas) (2005) 3. Silent Night" (TV, 2002) 4. The Christmas Shoes (TV, 2002) 5. The Gathering (TV, 1977)Modern Comedies (made after to 1969) 1. National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (1989) 2. Home Alone (1990) 3. The Santa Clause (1994) 4. Home Alone, Lost in New York (1992) 5. The Santa Clause 2 (2002) 6. Christmas with the Kranks (2004) 7. Love Actually (2003) 8. A Christmas Story (1983) 9. Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2002) 10. Elf (2003)Animated 1. The following tie for first: • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (TV, 1964) • A Charlie Brown Christmas (TV, 1965) • Dr. Suess' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (TV, 1966) • Frosty the Snowman (TV, 1969) • Mickey's Christmas Carol (TV, 1983) 6. The Polar Express (2004) 7. Walt Disney/Donald Duck Christmas (a. k. a. A Disney Christmas Gift) (TV, 1982) 8. A Garfield Christmas Special (TV, 1987) 9. The Wish that Changed Christmas (TV, 1991) 10. The Little Drummer Boy (TV, 1968)