Midnight (1939)
I stumbled on this movie quite accidentally. I was browsing the movie section at Costco (they have some marvelous boxed sets for much less than Amazon or other stores) and I picked up a two DVD set. One was Easy Living (1937) (look for that in an upcoming post) and the other was Midnight. After some serious deliberations I put the set in my cart. What a wonderful decision!
The title refers to Cinderella, and the movie does have a pleasant make-believe, magical quality about it. Although it doesn't really stick to the Cinderella story, which is nice. (The early title for the movie was the more dramatic Careless Rapture.) The film opens with Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert) sleeping on a train that just arrived in Paris. She is wearing a gold lamé dress with a rather silly attached hood, and she has no luggage besides a sparkling evening bag. It turns out she is an American actress/chorus girl who was gambling in Monte Carlo, lost everything, and hopped on a train to Paris. Which explains the evening gown. Well, it is raining, and she hasn't got an umbrella. Or any money. As she walks around the train station rather worriedly, a friendly and handsome cab driver (nice combination) notices her and asks her if she needs a taxi.
She explains that she has no money, but the driver, Tibor Czerny, (Don Ameche) still offers her his taxi. He likes her.
So they drive around for hours searching for a job. Eve auditions at various clubs but there are no job offers...Tibor buys her some dinner and they have the typical discussion over money. She says she grew up with nothing and is determined to marry rich, preferably titled rich. He responds with "money isn't everything" and tries to argue her out of her mercenary attitude. But she won't budge.
He begins to drive her to his apartment and tells her she will stay there tonight...he will be driving around so it is perfectly innocent. But she refuses, "We're no good for each other, Skipper. We're going in different directions." "That's what you think," he retorts.
So when he stops for gas she runs away. He tries to find her, but she sneaks into a fancy party, giving the door man her pawn shop ticket instead of the invitation. Thank goodness she is wearing gold lamé!
Once inside she tries to act as though she belongs. One man notices her, though, and he figures out that she isn't the wealthy society debutante she is pretending to be. The man is John Barrymore, who really does steal the movie. I did not like Barrymore in Twentieth Century (1934), but I like him in this movie.
Barrymore plays Georges Flammarion, a wily aristocrat bored with the party and the people. He is intrigued by Eve and even helps her out when her pawn ticket is discovered among the invitations. She wanders into a smaller room, introduces herself as Madame Cerny, a Hungarian baroness, and begins playing cards with Georges' wife Helene (Mary Astor) and her lover Jacques (Frances Lederer.)
Georges watches and realizes that Jacques is suddenly ignoring Helene and flirting with Eve. Georges comes up with a plan--he will use Eve to draw Jacques away from Helene, and hopefully this will drive Helene back to Georges, who is hopelessly in love with her. Eve agrees to the scheme since Georges provides a luxurious hotel room, an extravagant wardrobe, and some money for her cooperation. He is the fairy godfather who makes things appear like magic.
Unbeknownst to Eve, Tibor drives around Paris looking for Eve all night and all day. He even organizes the other cab drivers in a massive search. He really likes her.
To keep things sort of short: Eve accepts an invitation to the Flammarion's country estate and continues her efforts to woo Jacques away from Helene. Tibor figures out where she is, manages to get his hands on a tuxedo, and crashes the party, claiming to be her husband. Eventually imaginary children become part of the Cerny family back in Budapest. Comic misunderstandings, some screwball, and excellent performances all around make this quite an enjoyable film. Georges' machinations behind the scenes, Eve's quick thinking and outrageous fibs, and Tibor's at first clumsy but then more inspired attempts to win Eve are lots of fun to watch. The movie never feels stagnant or dull, which is quite an accomplishment for a Cinderella story.
Billy Wilder wrote the screenplay with Charles Brackett, and Mitchell Leisen directed. (He also directed a remake of Midnight, called Masquerade in Mexico and starring Dorothy Lamour in 1945.) Excellent people. Fun fact: The studio liked the script that Wilder and Brackett gave them, but wanted a few changes. They mistakenly sent the script back to the original authors, asking for a re-write. Wilder and Brackett sent the exact same screenplay back to the studio without any changes...the studio loved the "re-writes" and sent the film into production!
I am not a huge fan of Claudette Colbert, but I like her in this movie. She is blunt and down to earth and very funny. It is also interesting to watch how she is filmed. Apparently she only liked the left side of her face and demanded that Leisen film her from that side. Which he does in almost every shot. Take a look at the pics in this post if you don't believe me. Even this publicity still has her left side facing the camera!
Mary Astor was a sort of revelation in this movie. I had first seen her as the mother in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Crazy how five years took her from being a beautiful, desirable adulterer in Midnight to the asexual domestic super-mom in St. Louis...It turns out she played dangerous, sexy women a lot in her career. St. Louis was an exception, not the rule. A fun fact: Astor was pregnant during filming so they have to come up with various ways of hiding her tummy. She is usually sitting down.
This movie was also my introduction to Don Ameche. He also starred in several movies with Carmen Miranda, which I watched after Midnight. He is believable and exciting in Midnight, but sort of a cliche in the Carmen Mirana films. It probably doesn't help that I watched a bunch of those one after the other...
I have heard that Reese Witherspoon is remaking Midnight. Should be interesting!
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