Remember the Night: Film Impressions

Directed by Mitchell Leisen, 1940

I’m not too terribly familiar with director Mitchell Leisen...I’ve seen two of his most renowned films; Easy Living and Midnight, but I do know one or two things about his legacy. Today, he is simply largely forgotten, despite being a director of *international* renown in the 30s and 40s, directing some of the top stars of the day, and essentially being responsible for the careers of Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder, as they wrote many of his films. Therein lies part of the problem; Sturges and Wilder got to the cineastes first, and they hated Leisen notoriously, calling him “a stupid fairy” and “an interior decorator” irrespectively, loathing what he did to their scripts. Mark Rappaport said it best in his lengthy essay on Leisen, but I want to at least offer my defense of this film. Remember The Night here is my third Leisen film, and with the other two woefully in need of a second viewing, I’ll treat this as a first examination.

The film is Barbara Stanwyck and Fred Macmurray’s first pairing; eventually leading them to Double Indemnity (indeed, by Billy Wilder), and since its release it has been relatively forgotten. The film begins simply enough, briskly and musically showing Stanwyck’s character, Lee Leander, lifting a bracelet from a jewelry store and getting caught quickly. One rather amusing court session later, her case has been put on hold until after Christmas, and a misunderstanding (resulting in him paying for her bond) has put her in the care of John Sargent, Macmurray’s character, for the holidays, even though he was her prosecutor.

From this misunderstanding, we can all guess what happens...love will flower between these two. If this film is any indication of Leisen’s talent, I can already tell the difference between his approach and Wilder’s or Sturges’s. Both of these directors, to put it bluntly, had a sharpness and an edginess to their films, and its present in all of their work. Both talented and classy writers, with peculiarly low brow tastes and big cajones (though Sturges was a strict comic; all of his films are comedies and outright works of screwball). Leisen’s approach, with this script by Sturges, contrasts sharply in that he imbues the characters with a deep understanding and sympathy that I rarely see in the work of the other two.

Like so many romantic comedies, Remember the Night charts the course of a transformation of the characters. While neither character is as hard boiled as in Double Indemnity, they’re both tough cookies, and one initially could think it would turn into a ‘battle of the sexes’. But it doesn’t...as Sargent; with Macmurray providing a typically gentlemanly approach, and Stanwyck (with her usual charms, of course) quickly bond in the close quarters of Sargent’s car, as he makes his way to his family for a Christmas homecoming. Not only are these two treated with such understanding, though...when they make a stop to visit Leander’s mother; with whom he expects her to stay, she is given a very chilly reception by the morally stern old woman. We quickly realize that Leander suffered a childhood of very little love. And yet even this old bat is given the tiniest notes of sympathy...its made clear she’s a desperately unhappy person, and there’s a brief moment where we glance her; as Leander and Sargent talk, briefly and almost regretfully glancing out the window at them, before slinking into darkness. Its rare to see such humanity; even if its only a tiny hopeless twinkling of it, in a film like this, and the subtlety of the scene is remarkable, and its an eays moment to miss. The whole scene is treated with a stillness and quiet befitting such a moment.

The tone of the film shifts effortlessly; as does much of it, when we arrive at Sargent’s home...switching from one of neglect, to one of incredible familial warmth. If her familial upbringing was one of an emotional have-not, then John Sargent’s is definitely a have; with Capraesque loving smalltown bungling, though I’d argue it feels so much more truthful here, making a great deal out of little moments, and filling even the minor characters with surprising depth and humanity. The scene could have been a disaster, but in my opinion, its better than even Capra could manage. Its here that Leander seems to begin to understand Sargent, and in no time at all she realizes how much she loves him. Their attraction grows (one which is both emotional *and* physical for both of them; a healthy lust shines beautifully in Stanwyck’s eyes in particular).

Finally, of course, comes the crisis of the film, but its different from the crisis we might expect. In, say, a Capra film, something would happen (and I thought it would for a moment) which would cause one character would lose faith in the other, and the final struggle would involve Syanwyk’s Leander trying to win his trust. But the struggle is not like that at all; its quite the opposite...their crisis is one of selflessness. Macmurray is the prosecutor for this girl, and a darn good prosecutor he is. For him to lose the case would compromise his future. This leads us to a court scene, of course..the results of which I won’t spoil. But the conflicted emotions, the selflessness of both characters, and a wonderful elusion make it, in the end, help to make it one of the most satisfying romantic films of the classic era, and one of the most satisfying in general. It deserves to be enshrined as one of the holiday classics. I give this film a score of 91. I expect it to grow.

Universal, like Warner Bros., has woefully made the decision to start an “archive”, in which they put some of their catalog classics up for sale as burn-on-demand DVD-R’s, in order to satisfy the demand for more of these titles. Remember The Night, though still available only in a few venues, is thankfully *not* A DVD-R, and is indeed a pressed disc with a handful of supplements (not terribly revealing, but not exactly worthless), and a luminous transfer. Its kind of sad when when a disc like this; a good but not spectacular disc, is almost a cause for celebration, considering what it could have been.