Filmed two months after they paired in DeMille's "Sign of the Cross," Claudette Colbert and Fredric March are reunited in Tonight Is Ours -- here she's Nadya, self-exiled princess of a mythical European kingdom, and March is Sabien, a French national (I assume) who does...well, something. The movie's never very clear on who Sabien is and what he does for a living.
This was the directorial debut for Mitchell Liesen. He's credited with an "associate director" tag, but word is he did most of the chores. There's a visual resemblance between this film and "Sign of the Cross" -- no surprise, as Liesen personally directed sequences of that film as well (although he didn't receive credit for his work). This is a movie that revels in glamour.
The story begins with a "meet cute" between Sabien and Nadya: they run into each other at a costume ball, both of them masked, and quickly repair to the garden where they kiss. Only then do they take off their masks, only to discover that they each believed they were kissing someone else. But no matter, bells are ringing, and swept up with dawning love they spend a starcrossed night together, going from place to place -- a dance party, a bar, a jazz club -- all while still in costume. The costumes are a sight to behold: Colbert wears a sort of art deco clown getup, complete with a puffy collar and sequins which threaten to overwhelm the camera. She wears a domino mask to complete the ensemble. March wears a harlequin outfit, tight-fitting and emblazoned with a giant heart. He wears a black cowl which covers most of his face, leaving only his mouth and chin free, sort of like Batman. These costumes (and others glimpsed in the opening costume party scene) are the highlights of the film, but really a lot of work went into the garments throughout the movie.
The months pass and the two become inseparable, only -- and this is something the movie makes clear -- they don't "sully" their love by having sex. This ends up making the movie a giant tease; just as Sabien and Nadya yearn to consummate their love (Sabien especially!), so too do we viewers yearn to see them do so. But then destiny interferes: an official from Nadya's kingdom arrives to announce the death of her husband, killed by dissidents. Nadya is now queen. She must return home. But the couple is destined to meet again.
The movie's based on a play by Noel Coward, and much has been changed. Coward hated the film but I think it's fantastic. It only has two problems, as far as I'm concerned -- the subplot of the dissidents threatens to overpower the main plot, and their demands are too easily solved at the end of the film. Also, I had a hard time understanding their aims -- the dissidents Nadya meets with at the end are a wellspoken, peaceful lot, yet at the same time there are other dissidents sneaking around with guns -- guns they intend to kill Nadya with. And my other problem is that the second half of the film slows down somewhat -- the first half of this movie is 100% screwball, a year before the genre existed, with rapid-fire dialog, the main characters going from party to party, and nothing but glamour. The second half of the film becomes more of a palace politics sort of thing, with Nadya having long conversations with her administrator, her husband to be, and her mother-in-law to be.
But on the whole this is a great movie. March is good in this -- sometimes he comes off as too stiff (ie "Sign of the Cross"), other times he's incredibly dynamic ("Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"). Here he bridges the gap -- the guy could spin out lovey-dovey dialog better than any other actor in Hollywood, and he pours it on thick for Colbert. And as for Colbert herself -- my god, she is gorgeous in this film. Colbert was beautiful throughout her life, but I've always had a preference for "Early '30s Colbert," with her big eyes, apple cheeks, and bobbed chin-length hair. She is more beautiful in this film than in any other I've seen her in, save for "Sign of the Cross." In fact I might just prefer her here -- though her costumes aren't as revealing as those in "Cross" (and there are no milk baths in sight), she isn't relegated to wearing the stylized wigs she wore in that film.
Pre-Code naughtiness: Lots of dialog about sex -- when stating why she shouldn't be queen, Nadya basically admits to having slept around with several men. When Nadya relates to Sabien why she left her husband the king, we see it happen via flashback -- basically, the king insisted Nadya pretend to be a slave, so he could chase her around, whip her, and then take her. Early in the film Nadya wears a satin gown -- much like the one Clara Bow wore toward the end of "Call Her Savage," during her destruction of the hotel room -- and it's cut so low that Colbert's cleavage basically hangs out. And the Sabien/Nadya consummation scene is lensed as if Ernst Lubitsch was behind the camera -- Sabien turns off the light, and we see the door to the bedroom close behind them.
It's a shame this movie is so little known. A Claudette Colbert DVD boxset will be released in November 2009, and unfortunately this movie isn't included on it -- one can only hope that it's being saved for a forthcoming "Pre-Code Hollywood" DVD collection.
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