The title of Mitchell Leisen’s basic 1939 screwball comedy Midnight is a transparent allusion to Cinderella, foreshadowing the penniless American showgirl Eve Peabody’s (Claudette Colbert) inevitable entry into excessive society. It’s inside the opening 10 minutes that Eve will meet her prince—or reasonably, two of them. First, she’s whisked away by the cabbie Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), with whom she shares an instantaneous attraction as he takes her to some working-class hotspots round Paris earlier than she by chance finds herself being escorted right into a socialite’s swanky get together. It’s there, throughout a recreation of bridge, that she captures the eye of the rich playboy Jacques Picot (Francis Lederer), a lot to the chagrin of his lover, Helene (Mary Astor), and to the delight of her husband, Georges Flammarion (John Barrymore), who sees Eve, the charming imposter, because the means to breaking apart his spouse’s affair.
As with many a screwball comedy, deception, position reversals, and delightfully comedic bits of irony are woven into the material of Midnight, but it surely’s the escalating stress between Eve’s twin wishes—wealth and love—that offers the movie, written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, a barbed edge befitting its shrewd and difficult however effortlessly charming heroine. Eve has had sufficient of being poor and falling for broke males, which is why she finally runs off from Tibor searching for the sugar daddy she got here to Paris to search out within the first place.
But, it’s telling that when she’s pressured to offer a faux identify to her crew of potential benefactors, it’s Tibor’s identify that Eve instinctively takes: Baroness Czerny. Whereas she plots with Georges, the lone upper-cruster to smell out her fraudulence, to win over Jacques, Tibor scours town looking for her. On this planet of the movie, as Eve runs away from love, Tibor hunts it down, decided to show to her, as soon as and for all, that cash actually isn’t all that it’s cracked as much as be. Sure, there’s a way right here that Tibor has been written as the person who should save the lady from herself, however any misgivings over that conventional facet of the narrative is well forgotten given the richness of Eve’s characterization. For one, regardless of her gold-digging tendencies, Eve is definitively extra crafty, quick-witted, and charming than Tibor.
It isn’t that Tibor doesn’t possess these qualities, however neither is he Eve’s knight in shining armor. As Eve has Jacques wrapped round her finger, and a future free of monetary worries inside her grasp, it’s Tibor who should show himself worthy of her. And simply as Eve has outwitted a lot of the snobby socialites she rubs arms with, Tibor is pressured to do the identical to rigorously unravel the online of deceit Eve has spun round them. Whereas he lastly catches up with Eve, exposing her as a fraud proves terribly, and surprisingly, troublesome. Nevertheless it’s by means of this accelerating battle of wits that real love blossoms and the movie’s whip-smart and sharply noticed humor reaches its peak.
It was his irritating expertise on Midnight that induced Wilder to wish to direct his personal scripts. Wilder’s quintessentially caustic humorousness is actually current within the ultimate product, however one can sense the place Leisen, to Wilder’s chagrin, might have shaved off a few of that humor’s sharpest edges. But, it’s the lifelike character psychology that Leisen and, presumably, Brackett, dropped at Midnight that so completely counterbalances the movie’s extra searing commentary on the battle of the sexes. And regardless of any behind-the-scenes scuffles, one can sense none of this discord, as Midnight is as tautly scripted, brilliantly structured, and exquisitely acted as any screwball comedy to come back out of basic Hollywood.
Picture/Sound
The Criterion Collection’s switch from a brand new 4K digital restoration is just luminous. The picture element is particularly spectacular, capturing the varied textures of Midnight’s many elegant and elaborate costumes, the rain-soaked cobblestone streets of Paris, and the opulence of the mansion the place a lot of the movie’s second half takes place. Distinction can be sturdy all through, and the tight, even grain retains the celluloid textures of the movie’s authentic presentation. The uncompressed mono audio observe encompasses a properly balanced combine that, becoming for a screwball comedy, foregrounds the dialogue, which is clear as a whistle.
Extras
Writer and movie critic Michael Koresky gives a well-researched and interesting commentary observe that’s decided to boost Mitchell Leisen’s profile amongst cinephiles. Koresky discusses the director’s queerness and the methods it surreptitiously works its approach into his movies, in addition to touches on Midnight’s class fixations and the way Leisen, like Ernst Lubitsch, went out of his approach to make sure that his supporting gamers got the second to shine.
In a program that includes a 1969 audio-only interview with Leisen, he talks concerning the manufacturing, his fond reminiscences of the solid, together with John Barrymore studying cue playing cards, and his productive but tumultuous working relationship with Billy Wilder. Additionally included are a Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the movie from 1940 and a booklet with an essay by critic David Cairns, who writes of the movie’s distinctive mix of hard-edged cynicism and kind-hearted playfulness.
Total
Some of the beautiful and shrewdly constructed of Thirties Hollywood’s screwball comedies will get a glowing new switch courtesy of Criterion.
Rating:
Solid: Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, Francis Lederer, Mary Astor, Elaine Barrie, Hedda Hopper, Rex O’Malley, Monty Woolley Director: Mitchell Leisen Screenwriter: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder Distributor: The Criterion Collection Operating Time: 94 min Ranking: NR 12 months: 1939 Launch Date: June 17, 2025 Purchase: Video
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