This is one of the films at Paramount (with EASY MONEY & REMEMBER THE NIGHT) that Mitchell Leisin was criticized by the screenwriters (Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, and Preston Sturgis) for altering the pacing or direction of the screenplays. He didn't. Leisin was never as cynical as either Wilder or Sturgis, and tended to soften the central characters of his comedies by showing them as human beings. This is true with how he handled Wilder and Brackett's "Eve Peabody" (Claudette Colbert), who is a showgirl/gold-digger who lucks out because a wealthy banker George Flammarion (John Barrymore) needs her to help him win back his wife Helene (Mary Astor).
MIDNIGHT is the "Cinderella" story. Colbert has come to Paris with nothing but the clothes she has on her. She meets a cab driver (Don Ameche as "Tibor Czerny") who is willing to help stake her until she can find work. But Colbert (although she obviously likes Ameche) is determined to take Paris by storm first, and runs away from him - managing to get into a social event. It is a soirée held by Hedda Hopper (one of her few movie roles), where she keeps annoying the pianist by introducing his piece as a Prelude, when it is an Etude.
Barrymore is there with Astor, and with her boy-friend (Francis Lederer as Jacques Picot), as well as Astor's gay confidante Rex O'Malley (as Marcel Renaud). Lederer keeps looking very interested at Colbert (much to Astor's increasing annoyance), and Barrymore notes this. He asks Colbert a few questions, and accepts her answers. Like another Eve in a later film, Colbert does not know enough to keep her comments simple and non-committal. But as the party breaks up, a limousine is there to pick up Colbert and take her to a ritzy hotel suite as Baroness Czerny. After she wanders stunned through the opulent apartments, Barrymore shows up. After pointing out her error about various answers she gave him (you will learn about the oldest subway in Europe), Barrymore explains why he has set her up (and will back her). He wants her to attract Lederer away from Astor, whom Barrymore loves deeply but who is infatuated with the younger man. Colbert agrees, but only because she may end up marrying the wealthy Lederer (his fortune is from an inferior champaign, but Barrymore says that "Everytime his champaign is bought, his fortune bubbles!").
Ameche of course is busy looking for Colbert, and eventually finds her. He confronts her at the Flammarion mansion, and claims he is the husband of the "Baroness". This, of course, adds a complication to the plans of Barrymore (who tries to derail Ameche repeatedly). In the end the entire matter has to go to divorce court. Unfortunately it is run by that stickler for law, order, and the French home: Monty Wooley. And how it is resolved I will leave to the viewer to discover.
It is a witty little film, due in part to the Wilder and Brackett script, but also the master hand of Leisin in getting performances out of his actors - including John Barrymore in his last good performance in a supporting role. Reportedly Barrymore read his lines from cue cards just off the set (he explained that he would not memorize lines from a Hollywood script - only from a classic play). Still look at his moments of zaniness pretending he is the Czerny's child, or in making little sniping remarks at O'Malley's expense. He still could act quite well at this point. Ameche and Colbert also have good timing, and chemistry together. Colbert even has a moment of humanness (that Leisin added) where she explains her avariciousness is based on seeing how her parents grew to hate each other in their mutually entrapped poverty row marriage. Wilder normally never got points like that into his films, nor did Sturgis.
It is a wonderful comedy, and one of the best screwball films of the 1930s. Pity it is not as well known as it should be.
MIDNIGHT is the "Cinderella" story. Colbert has come to Paris with nothing but the clothes she has on her. She meets a cab driver (Don Ameche as "Tibor Czerny") who is willing to help stake her until she can find work. But Colbert (although she obviously likes Ameche) is determined to take Paris by storm first, and runs away from him - managing to get into a social event. It is a soirée held by Hedda Hopper (one of her few movie roles), where she keeps annoying the pianist by introducing his piece as a Prelude, when it is an Etude.
Barrymore is there with Astor, and with her boy-friend (Francis Lederer as Jacques Picot), as well as Astor's gay confidante Rex O'Malley (as Marcel Renaud). Lederer keeps looking very interested at Colbert (much to Astor's increasing annoyance), and Barrymore notes this. He asks Colbert a few questions, and accepts her answers. Like another Eve in a later film, Colbert does not know enough to keep her comments simple and non-committal. But as the party breaks up, a limousine is there to pick up Colbert and take her to a ritzy hotel suite as Baroness Czerny. After she wanders stunned through the opulent apartments, Barrymore shows up. After pointing out her error about various answers she gave him (you will learn about the oldest subway in Europe), Barrymore explains why he has set her up (and will back her). He wants her to attract Lederer away from Astor, whom Barrymore loves deeply but who is infatuated with the younger man. Colbert agrees, but only because she may end up marrying the wealthy Lederer (his fortune is from an inferior champaign, but Barrymore says that "Everytime his champaign is bought, his fortune bubbles!").
Ameche of course is busy looking for Colbert, and eventually finds her. He confronts her at the Flammarion mansion, and claims he is the husband of the "Baroness". This, of course, adds a complication to the plans of Barrymore (who tries to derail Ameche repeatedly). In the end the entire matter has to go to divorce court. Unfortunately it is run by that stickler for law, order, and the French home: Monty Wooley. And how it is resolved I will leave to the viewer to discover.
It is a witty little film, due in part to the Wilder and Brackett script, but also the master hand of Leisin in getting performances out of his actors - including John Barrymore in his last good performance in a supporting role. Reportedly Barrymore read his lines from cue cards just off the set (he explained that he would not memorize lines from a Hollywood script - only from a classic play). Still look at his moments of zaniness pretending he is the Czerny's child, or in making little sniping remarks at O'Malley's expense. He still could act quite well at this point. Ameche and Colbert also have good timing, and chemistry together. Colbert even has a moment of humanness (that Leisin added) where she explains her avariciousness is based on seeing how her parents grew to hate each other in their mutually entrapped poverty row marriage. Wilder normally never got points like that into his films, nor did Sturgis.
It is a wonderful comedy, and one of the best screwball films of the 1930s. Pity it is not as well known as it should be.