1939 was a magical year for Hollywood studio output. Gone with the Wind (which wasn’t controversial then), The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, Dark Victory, and so many more amazing film productions.
One under-rated screwball comedy from that year is Midnight. It was written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, and directed by Mitchell Leisen, a name we seem to have put to the side these days—but check out his wonderful work. As the film was in production, apparently Leisen made changes to the script. Wilder is said to have been enraged, especially when he was barred from the set. He wanted better control of his work, and in fact wanted to direct. He would not be given that chance in Hollywod till 1942. Subsequently, among his greatest directorial works are The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard, Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, and One, Two, Three.
The late film critic, Robert Osborne, who almost single-handedly raised the Turner Classic Movies channel from a great opportunity to see movies into a great opportunity to learn about movies, had this to say about Midnight when it aired: “(It was) quite definitely one of the most charming and enjoyable screwball comedies ever made.”
Who gets credit for such high praise? It’s really an ensemble of great talent who make Midnight a classic of its genre. Certainly the Brackett/Wilder script is something special. The story opens with Eve Peabody, an American chorus girl, arriving in Paris hiding out on a train from Monte Carlo. She has no money, no job. It’s pouring rain and she’s in a posh thin-fabric evening gown. She has no luggage. Tibor, a handsome Hungarian taxi driver befriends her, keeps her going through the night.
Then she connects with wealthy Georges Flammarion. He treats her to a home at the Ritz and an haute couture wardrobe. Why? Because his wife is having an affair with a man, and he wants to break it up. He sees that the man his wife adores is attracted to Eve. So he plots to help Eve in order to save his marriage.
It’s a clever storyline and the dialog is snappy, witty. There are so many laugh-out-loud lines. At times it appears to be a Cinderella story; then it is a deliciously cynical romantic tale. Eve never takes her good luck for granted, and at one point she tells Georges, “Don’t forget. Every Cinderella has her midnight.”
The cast is made up of top Hollywood stars of the period. Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche, Francis Lederer and Mary Astor. Even among that Hollywood royalty, the actor who steals almost every scene in which he appears is the legendary John Barrymore, in one of his two late-career superb film roles. (The other is the title role is in The Great Man Votes which came out the same year.). Barrymore, at 57, looks much older. His sexy and refined good looks have faded. Years of severe alcoholism have run him down, but, even if only in traces, he’s still John Barrymore and it’s a treat to see this performance.
If you are one for Hollywood trivia, you might take note of the manner in which Claudette Colbert is photographed. In every one of her films where she had enough control, she is filmed almost straight-on or from the left side, no right-side profiles for her. She said it was a less attractive angle for her features.
Midnight currently is available for streaming from the Criterion Collection and will be available on Blu-ray in mid-June. This is an exceptional film that deserves to be seen in a first-rate format.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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