Remember The Night (1940)

I am sure that people who are already familiar with Remember The Night already notice when it starts to become a more popular viewing choice towards the end of the year (due to it being set during the Christmas holiday period). I wasn't familiar with the film before now, but I suddenly started noticing it everywhere. I can only imagine that it's a solid choice for some of the classic movie channels, and the recent (typically sublime) UK Blu-ray release from Indicator must have helped it become even more ubiquitous than usual this December.

Written by Preston Sturges and directed by Mitchell Leisen, all you should need to know to get you interested in Remember The Night is that it was the first movie to pair up Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. It's not their best (because four years later they would work together in the classic Double Indemnity), but it's a very enjoyable use of their talents.

Stanwyck plays Lee Leander, a woman who has been arrested on a shoplifting charge. She did it, and she doesn't seem too remorseful about doing it, but MacMurray's prosecuting attorney, John Sargent, knows that a jury can be affected by seasonal goodwill just before Christmas, which is why he is happy to request a continuance of the trial until after the holidays. Unfortunately, with no family or funds available, this means that Miss Leander will spend the holiday season in jail. Sympathetic to her situation, especially as he caused it, Sargent manages to get her out on bail. Dropped off at his apartment, Miss Leander quickly ends up making Mr. Sargent regret his good deed. He is heading home for the holidays, and decides to take Miss Leander to her family, where she can enjoy some time before heading back for her assigned court date, and so begins a blossoming relationship that could cause hurt and happiness in equal measure.

The thing that works best about Remember The Night is that it's a message movie that delivers a message you might not actually expect. Yes, there are the usual enjoyable character interactions, and there's a fun set-piece or two (small in scale, but there throughout the runtime nonetheless), as well as the strengthening connection between the two leads, but this is a film that uses the goodwill of the season to reflect a light of joy/shame on the many supporting characters. Stanwyck's character is not pleading innocence throughout, nor does she ever really make any excuses for her own behaviour, but viewers, and those in the movie who get to know her without their view shaded by her arrest, can easily see that there is much more to define her than a penchant for thievery.

It helps, of course, that Stanwyck's character is played by Stanwyck, an actress who I've never known to disappoint (although I still have so many more of her movies to get around to). It also helps that MacMurray is putting in yet another of those winning turns that he delivered for a good few decades, making him easy to root for even when he might not have been consistently in the right. Beulah Bondi and Elizabeth Patterson are a delight as two members of Sargent's family (his mother and aunt, respectively), Georgia Caine plays a much-less-delightful mother to our female lead, and Willard Robertson, Sterling Holloway, and Charles Waldron all get at least one good moment. It's also worth mentioning the small role for Fred 'Snowflake' Toones, a character actor who may be involved a couple of scenes that disappointingly play to the prevailing attitude of the era, but who deserves to be namechecked nonetheless. (it's the writing/direction that disappoints there, not his performance)

It doesn't overdo the Christmas feeling, but you get it emanating from the screen at key points, making it easy to see why people may choose to keep this one in annual rotation. It delivers familiar good feeling with a satisfyingly unfamiliar sprinkling of realism . . . 1940s cinematic realism, which is still miles away from actual realism though. Determined not to let things turn into a fairytale, nor the characters to transform into a princess or prince, Remember The Night is a great example of how to give audiences what they want without letting them feel as if they have just been served a bland final product from the end of a standardised factory line. 

This may not have the constant snowfall and bell-ringing of other Christmas movie classics from this era, but that just gives you all the more reason to revisit it. I know that I'll be trying to make this a new December tradition in my house.

8/10

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Prime Time: Crime Of Passion (1956)

If you are looking for a great film starting Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, or Fay Wray, then I could point you to at least a dozen better viewing options. But if you are looking for a not necessarily great film starring all four of these people then you may, like me, find plenty to enjoy in Crime Of Passion, a light noir that is elevated by the cast.

Stanwyck is Kathy, a successful woman who leaves her newspaper job to become the happy housewife of a policeman named Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden). Unfortunately, it turns out that the role of happy housewife isn’t really enough for her, especially as she sees her husband unable to climb further up the career ladder. Sharing her frustrations, and her hopes, with Tony Pope (Raymond Burr), Kathy also starts to consider that being nice to Tony, who already IS higher up that career ladder, might be a way to help Bill. But Tony is married to Alice (Fay Wray), which means that Kathy’s plan could potentially destroy a number of lives.

Directed by Gerd Oswald, this is a perfectly decent movie in a safe pair of hands. Oswald had a good run at this time (other movies from him including A Kiss Before Dying and Screaming Mimi) and would then go on to direct various episodes for numerous TV shows. As enjoyable as this is, it feels like a film directed by someone ready for a long career in TV (although he did deliver some more feature films towards the end of his career, after work on the likes of Gentle Ben, Bonanza, Daniel Boone, etc).

Writer Jo Eisinger has another couple of greats to their name (namely Gilda and Night And The City), but they seem happy to write this as something that simply simmers away while the cast enjoy themselves in their roles. Nothing ever becomes too explosive, nor is it ever too tense (even when things happen in the finale that change everything for the main characters), but it is never dull or unenjoyable, thanks to the excellent lead turn.

She may not be subtle for most of her scenes, particularly in the second half of the film, but Stanwyck is hugely entertaining here. The film seems to take a perverse pleasure in showing the contentment/boredom creating a rot that eats away at her character from the inside. Hayden gives another one of his stoic and dependable roles, the kind of thing he easily did so well, and he remains someone to root for, even if others are due to pay a hefty price while he dutifully gets on with his job and life in a way that suits him best. Burr is amusingly shady, the script helping to ring alarm bells in the minds of viewers as soon as he appears, while Wray plays the kind of sweet and content housewife that Stanwyck’s character never really wants to become.

It’s not really cinematic, there are no major twists and turns in the plot, and the title tells you exactly where things are going, but I still liked this. There’s a good enough framework here, nicely fleshed out and given a nice sheen by the cast, and any fans of the stars should have some fun.

6/10

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There's Always Tomorrow (1955)

Although the treatment of the material shows the restraint and sensitive handling dictated by the era in which it was made, this Douglas Sirk movie is yet another timeless classic that focuses on love and infatuation, and shows how these things can be damaged or nurtured, depending on the circumstances.

Fred MacMurray plays Clifford Groves, a toymaker who is blessed with a lovely wife (Joan Bennett) and children who seem to be turning into fine young adults. Clifford is content, and his family are in that happy space which leads to them taking a lot of their situation for granted. Things start to change when Clifford reconnects with a childhood friend, Norma Miller Vale (Barbara Stanwyck), and it looks like our leading man could be heading down a slippery slope towards temptation, and the ruination of his marriage.

I don't care who you are, or how consistently blissful you have been in the main relationship of your life, There's Always Tomorrow resonates just as much today as it must have when first released back in the mid-1950s.

Sirk directs with his usual capable touch, working from a screenplay by Bernard C. Schoenfeld (better known for TV fare that tends to focus on thrills and/or action), which was developed from a story by Ursula Parrot (previously made into a movie in 1934). Considering how effective the film is at showing how easily cracks can start to spread through a contented family household, I'd be interested to read the source material. There's no doubt that everyone involved does their part to sell the film but it's so full of little moments of truth that I have to assume the novel reads even better.

MacMurray is wonderful in a role that allows him to play a relatively average guy. He's not made out to be devastatingly handsome, nor is he shown to be any kind of ladies man. He's just quite a sweet, hard-working, man who takes umbrage at people casting aspersions on his friendship with a woman before starting to consider the other roads his life could take. Stanwyck is also very good, also not being sold as a beautiful seductress. Her appeal is based on her obvious affection for her friend, and a lifestyle that's a step or two removed from the everyday "humdrum" family life. William Reynolds and Gigi  Perreau play the older children who start to suspect the behaviour of their father, and Joan Bennett does a marvellous job in what could easily have been a thankless role. She's a loving, caring wife who just isn't always to schedule things in a way that gives her more time with her husband.

Unlike so many other films that have wandered through similar territory, there are no villains here, no easy moments for viewers to point to and really declare "aha, that is the cause". No, what you get here is a steady build up of sadness, perceived neglect, and a questioning of love: how much effort does it take, is chemistry any real alternative to a full life made together, and does finally considering loss make it easier to appreciate what you have? Things many of us go through at least once during a serious relationship.

8/10

This is NOT in this lovely set. But buy that set anyway.
Americans may wish to try out this disc, but there's a better UK version available here.

Double Indemnity (1944)

Fred MacMurray plays insurance salesman Walter Neff in this classic film noir from director Billy Wilder (who co-wrote the screenplay with Raymond Chandler, based on the book by James M. Cain). Neff is a good guy. He's a great salesman and also a colleague that claims investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) can depend on. That all changes, however, on the day that he meets Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck). He's only visiting to get her husband (Tom Powers) to renew his automobile insurance policy, but Phyllis soon starts guiding the conversation towards life insurance and a policy she could get for her husband that would guarantee a big payout if, god forbid, anything ever happened to him.

Highly influential in all the right ways, Double Indemnity holds up today as a great slice of entertainment and a quintessential film noir. It was far from the first movie in that subgenre, but it's one that remains an almost perfect example containing many of the tropes and showing how to perfectly piece them together.

The one MINOR criticism I have is that the dialogue, so cool and great to listen to, quickly becomes a bit too unnatural. Mind you, after listening to an exchange like the entire first meeting between Walter and Phyllis, the many hits are worth the few misses. It's worth noting that, although it seems I am contradicting myself, at least 90% of the script is a joy to tickle and caress the earlobes.

MacMurray and Robinson are superb in their roles, with the former somehow managing to stay sympathetic and likable even as events take a turn for the worse, but this movie belongs to Stanwyck, who grabs her role with both hands and delivers a performance that film-makers have rightly remembered and tried to emulate ever since. There's also a lovely performance from Jean Heather, playing Stanwyck's stepdaughter, never warming to the woman with good reason.

Billy Wilder gave cineastes a number of classics throughout his career. This is one of them. The voiceover narration, the plot twists, the details teased out in the conversations, the performances, the secondary characters who get to make almost as much of an impression as the leads. I almost gave this 10/10, and many will argue that I should have, but that's the joy of us all having different opinions.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Film-Noir-Collection-Kirk-Douglas/dp/B000UWXM1C/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1383510857&sr=1-1&keywords=film+noir+box+set