This Is the Night (1932)

This Is the Night
Directed by Frank Tuttle
Written by Benjamin Glazer and George Marion Jr. from a play by Henry Falk and Rene Peter
1932/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Gerald Gray: Claire, the moment you meet a man, right after you’ve said ‘how do you do?’ you should add ‘my husband throws javelins’.

Sophisticated early screwball comedy has that Lubitsch touch, without Lubitsch.

Stephen Mattewson (Cary Grant) is competing in the javelin event at the 1932 Los Angeles Oympics.  He returns home to Paris early, just in time to catch wife Claire (Thelma Todd) evidently planning a trip to Venice with paramour Gerald Grey (Roland Young).  Friend of the family Bunny West (Charles Ruggles) tells Stephen the two tickets were for Gerald and his new wife.  Stephen insists that he and Claire will accompany them on the trip.  So Gerald has to come up with a wife.  He does, in the form of poor but spectacular Germaine (Lili Dalmita).

The foursome plus Bunny arrive in Venice.  From there on it is a comedy of errors in which everybody really knows what’s going on but each is trying to milk the last bit of embarrassment for the others out of the situation.

I have special affection for Young and Ruggles and they add a lot of wit to the film.  Cary Grant already had a handle on the perfect delivery for this kind of dialogue.  Paris and Venice are obviously on the studio back lot but charming none-the-less.  This picture contains some sung dialogue – as when taxi drivers inform the world that “Madame has lost her dress!  I got used to this rapidly.  It is not a musical by any means, though. Recommended.

This was Grant’s first film performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_XGiE9wriM