Midnight (1939)

Midnight
Directed by Mitchell Leisen
Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett based on a story by Edwin Justis Mayer and Franz Schulz
1939/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Eve Peabody: Listen. Back in New York, whenever I managed to crash a party full of luscious big-hearted millionaires, there was always sure to be some snub-faced kid in the orchestra playing traps. And so at four in the morning, when the wise girls were skipping off to Connecticut to marry those millionaires, I’d be with him in some nightspot learning tricks on the kettledrum. And he always had a nose like yours.[/box]

A sterling cast and the Wilder-Brackett script makes this light-hearted romp a treat.

Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert) arrives in Paris having lost her last sou in Monte Carlo. She bargains with taxi driver Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche) to take her around to look for jobs.  They quickly fall in love and Eve, who is scouting for a rich husband, flees.  She ends up crashing a society soiree posing as the “Baroness Czerny”.  She is spotted by Georges Flammarion (John Barrymore) whose wife Helene (Mary Astor) is having an affair with a young man. Flammarion pays Eve to lure the wealthy man away from Helene. The scheme is furthered during a weekend in the country.

In the meantime, Tibor has hired his cab driver cronies to scour Paris for Eve.  Just as Eve is about to be found out, Tibor shows up at the country house as the Baron Czerny and saves the day.  Or does he?   With Hedda Hopper as a society lady and Monte Wooley as a judge.

This may be Don Ameche’s best performance as a young man.  The witty dialogue suits him much better than his good guy roles in the Power-Faye films.  Everyone else is clicking on all cylinders – even poor John Barrymore who was actually on his last legs. According to the trivia, he was assisted by his wife and reading from cue cards by this time.  You wouldn’t have known.  The film makers also managed to expertly disguise Astor’s pregnancy.

According to IMDb, Leisen’s constant requests for re-writes on this picture sparked Wilder to campaign to direct his own scripts in self-defense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXvfPzBfoDM

Clip – at the hat shop – Colbert and Astor