Midnight (Universal Cinema Classics)
by Mitchell Leisen
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DVD details
Actor: Charles Brackett, Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, Mary AstorDirector: Mitchell Leisen
Brand: Universal Studios
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-22
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Midnight (Universal Cinema Classics)
DVD Review: Screwball Classic in a Glossy, Artificial Paris
Summary: 4 Stars
It's lauded as a classic these days, but I didn't much like Midnight the first time I viewed it. Don't get me wrong - I'm obsessed with Claudette Colbert, and I thought she gave a great performance (but then again when doesn't she?). I also thought the Charles Brackett/Billy Wilder screenplay was as sharply humorous as any of their others from the period, and Mitchell Leisen's directing as always delivered the requisite faux-Lubitsch I expected of him. I didn't even mind John Barrymore quite obviously reading his hidden cue cards (notice how his bleary eyes roam about the set while he speaks, momentarily fixing on something - you can even see his eyes scan the dialog at certain points). I just felt that the film's two plots didn't fully gel - I wanted the movie to either stick with the Ameche/Colbert romance or just play out the "steal away the lover of Barrymore's wife" bit to its full.
But on my second viewing it all fell together. The budding Colbert/Ameche romance, the elaborate courtroom finale, even the way the movie ends a bit sooner than it should. The film moves at a snappy pace, all one-liners and witty barbs and glamorous sets. Colbert flits through the first half of the movie in a luminous evening gown which at times shines so bright it threatens to overwhelm the camera. And the artificial Paris is exquisite. I love the artifice of old movies. Rather than shoot on location in Paris they'd just build a replica of the city on the studio lot. Cynics today claim "the sets look like sets" but I say that's part of the charm of old films - the artificial worlds these characters inhabit only serve to heighten the fairy tale aspect of the movies themselves.
And Midnight is a 1939 fairy tale for sure, loosely based around Cinderella: Colbert is a fast-talking American without a red cent to her name, looking for a job in Paris. Instead she meets and quickly falls for cab-driving Don Ameche. Soon though she flees, not wanting to delve into another affair, and finds herself swept into the high society world of millionaire John Barrymore, who at length employs Colbert to pose as a Baroness. Her mission is to seduce the wealthy man who cuckolds Barrymore, and she carries it out with aplomb. This convoluted plot actually develops organically, and the movie rolls along full steam ahead. It's entertaining throughout, not to mention hilarious. And most importantly it rewards multiple viewings.
Those who enjoy this film are encouraged to seek out The Claudette Colbert boxset, which features her 1938 movie "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife." This Ernst Lubitsch-directed, Gary Cooper-costarring film is very much along the lines of Midnight; it's even written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, the same pair who wrote Midnight (as well as Colbert's 1940 "Arise My Love," a movie yet to be released on DVD but one Colbert claimed was her favorite of her own films). "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife" has for whatever reason been assailed over the decades while Midnight has been praised, but I actually prefer it - indeed, I'd say it's Colbert's best screwball comedy, even considering "It Happened One Night."
The DVD for Midnight includes the original trailer, which does a wonderful job conveying the film's "Cinderella" theme. The movie's picture quality is mostly fine, if a bit grainy, but I've noticed that's pretty common in most classic film DVDs. (Strange when you consider that most of these same films, when broadcast on cable network TCM, are noticeably free of grain.)
DVD Review: An Unexpected Delight
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't recall why I started out looking for old Don Ameche movies, but based on so many positive reviews here, this was the one I chose first. I am so glad I did. I've watched the DVD at least a dozen time since I received it, and I haven't tired of it. I love the characters, the plot, the settings and costuming.
Colbert's Eve Peabody is beautiful, elegant, quick-thinking, and willing to take chances, whatever the consequences. She yearns for financial security but somehow always winds up following her heart instead of her wallet (or clutch purse, in this case). You can't help liking and sympathizing with her even when she seems determined to follow through on her gold-digging plan. She quickly and successfully jumps into the role of faux countess.
Ameche's Tibor Czerny is an honest, determined, non-materialistic cab driver of apparently simple tastes for whom the wealthy are just fares, not people to be envied, until he meets Eve and is utterly smitten with her. She's smitten too, but tries to resist falling in love with yet another poor man, and flees into the lap of luxury. But he'll do anything to find her again, even slide into the role of titled nobility himself.
Barrymore's George Flammarion is fabulous - he's hilarious, sly, and desperate to keep the wife he loves, whatever the cost, even to the extent of throwing a comely gold-digger in the path of his wife's lover in hopes of distracting him. As complications arise, he seems to revel not just in having set the so-far successful plot in motion, but in being the only one who truly realizes what's going on and in going along with everything that happens as the situation gets more complicated and fantastic.
Astor's Helene Flammarion is very well-played, and her pain at seeing her lover's reaction to Eve seems very real. She quickly realizes her rival will be successful if she doesn't do something, and she scrambles for some way to win the battle for Picot's heart; she's delighted to meet "Count Czerny" and to set Czerny and Picot against each other in hopes that the count will woo back his countess and her lover will return to her.
Lederer's Jacques Picot, not often mentioned, is gorgeous and fun to watch, if rather predictable as the light-hearted playboy whose fancy flits easily from one woman to another -- and you have to wonder about his often-referenced mother. He's a man who needs women in his life, yet you see that none of them will really displace the mother who matters most to him -- until, perhaps, Eve.
The beginning build-up gives us time to get to know and care what happens between Peabody and Czerny, before they slip into the world of the refined wealthy who seem to have nothing better to do than host parties, go shopping, and play love games, with the poor couple looking for the real thing. It's easy to just sit back, enjoy, laugh, and root for love. Plenty of sly innuendo and sparkling wit, without the complications from vulgarity, violence, or love-defined-as-hopping-into-bed-at-first-meeting that have the potential to distract from characters, plot, and setting. The cast plays so well off each other. I enjoy them all.
This movie is truly joyous, an one reviewer noted. I love it and recommend it.
DVD Review: Very amusing!
Summary: 5 Stars
I sure do enjoy films like this! This is one of those silly old movies that never made me laugh out loud, but I had an amused smirk on my face practically the whole time.
I never really knew how to define a screwball comedy before, but this movie illustrates the genre perfectly. The whole plot is so ridiculously mixed up it's hard to even describe it! Suffice it to say that there is good acting and clever plot/lines throughout.
If you like old romantic comedies a la Preston Sturges, Frank Capra, etc., I highly recommend this movie. If you prefer Caddyshack or Spaceballs, well, why in the world are you even reading this review? ;0)
DVD Review: An Overlooked Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Lost in the shuffle among 1939's greatest films, "Midnight" is a thoroughly delightful romantic comedy set in the glamour of Paris. Director Mitchell Leisen's stylish masterpiece benefits from Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's brilliantly perceptive screenplay. The entire cast is marvelous, with Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche and John Barrymore at their absolute best. Highly recommended.DVD Review: DO NOT MISS THIS ONE!
Summary: 5 Stars
Someone has already mentioned that Midnight is the greatest romantic comedy nobody has seen. Too true!
This is a delightful, lighter-than-air romp. The cast, sets, costumes and direction are flawless, topped only by the wit of the screenplay and Barrymore's hysterical performance. Was he drunk during filming? Was he parodying hmself? Does it matter? He's fabulous!
I happened to catch a badly cut up version of this on late night TV years ago and have adored it ever since. FINALLY I can have the unadulterated version on DVD!
Can you tell I'm thrilled?
Description of Midnight (Universal Cinema Classics)
Academy Award? winners* Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche and John Barrymore light up the screen in Midnight - one of the best romantic comedies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. The fun begins when a penniless showgirl (Colbert) impersonates a Hungarian countess and, with the help of an aristocrat (Barrymore), quickly adapts to her new lifestyle. But can she stop herself from falling in love with yet another poor man (Ameche)? Written by Academy Award? winners** Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, Midnight has been hailed as "just about the best light comedy ever caught by the camera!" (Motion Picture Daily)Although Hollywood's golden year of 1939 is best remembered for Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, it was also a banner year for sophisticated screen comedy, and Mitchell Leisen's Midnight is a deliciously prime example. Screenwriters Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett were in peak form when they concocted this smooth confection about Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert), an American showgirl in Paris who is out of work, money, and luck when a handsome cabbie (Don Ameche) offers to drive her around the City of Light to search for employment as a nightclub chanteuse. Nobody's hiring, but Eve has a better plan: posing as a Hungarian countess, she smuggles her way into Parisian high society and suddenly finds herself in the lap of luxury, commissioned by a wealthy aristocrat (John Barrymore) to seduce a French playboy (Francis Lederer) away from Barrymore's not-so-loyal wife (Mary Astor). While Eve is living it up at the Ritz Hotel and enjoying trips to Versailles, Ameche's on a mission to find her and declare his true love.
Class distinction, infidelity, false identity... these were daring ingredients for a 1939 comedy, and Midnight (a casebook display of Paramount's shimmering studio style of the '30s) is as fresh today as it was when first released. The silky perfection of the Wilder-Brackett screenplay is expertly served by Leisen (a director who deserves ranking with Ernst Lubitsch and Preston Sturges), and Colbert is merely the brightest star in a flawless cast of screwball veterans. Poking fun at the elite was a Wilder-Brackett specialty, and Barrymore is particularly savvy to the material, giving a performance that's simultaneously sly, desperate, and hilariously inspired. The plot is so elegantly executed that Midnight makes most comedies of later decades look pale in comparison. Gone are the days, it seems, when sophistication, wit, and good taste were an integral part of Hollywood comedy. Midnight offers all of those qualities in abundance, making it a perfect antidote to the crudeness that dominates mainstream comedy at the turn of the millennium. --Jeff Shannon
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