Midnight (Universal Cinema Classics)
by Mitchell Leisen
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DVD Cover Information
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
Movie Reviews of Midnight (Universal Cinema Classics)
Movie 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.)
Summary 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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