CLASSIC MOVIE REVIEW: Remember the Night
A Forgotten Holiday Classic
By Alan Herrmann
MOVIE CRITIC
A drama? A comedy? A love story? A holiday tale? Actually, Remember the Night (1940) is all four with a surprise ending to boot that not everyone loved back then or even now.
But don’t be turned off – this film has a lot of heart and standout performances by the two leads, Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. The screenplay was written by the great Preston Sturges, who would become one of the leading directors in Hollywood during the 1940s. Mitchell Leisen directed the picture, but it is essentially a Sturges film.
In Remember the Night, Stanwyck is mesmerizing and luminous, but she’s also tough and streetwise, with an irreverent sense of humor. She plays Lee Leander, a thief who gets nabbed trying to sell a piece of jewelry to one store after she swiped it from another shop.
MacMurray plays John Sargent, the prosecutor trying to put Lee away. His midwestern charm works to his advantage with jurors, but his time in New York has also made him wary and somewhat cynical.
The trial begins during the Christmas holiday and Sargent fears that the jury, in a generous spirit and anxious to get on with their holiday shopping, may find her innocent. He convinces the judge to hold the trial after the holidays. Lee finds herself temporarily free with no place to go until the trial reconvenes after the New Year. Feeling guilty that Lee has nowhere to go, he offers to drive her home to Indiana. As it turns out, they’re both “Hoosiers.”
On their trip to Indiana, the movie takes on a classic Sturges “screwball” turn that involves rural trespassing, stealing milk from a cow, and nearly burning down the home of a justice of the peace. These types of scenes became more prominent in later Sturges films like The Lady Eve, Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, and Hail the Conquering Hero which, besides writing, he also directed.
More Sturges touches follow. After Lee is turned away by her vindictive mother, John brings her to his family home for the holidays. The contrast between Lee’s childhood home – dark and shadowy, with little light or warmth – to the Sargent farm, a Christmas postcard of a place where John’s mother and his aunt Emma live with their hired hand, Willy, played by the always quirky and hilarious Sterling Holloway. They create a wonderful Christmas atmosphere with traditional tree decorating, singing, and exchanging presents. It’s in this environment that we witness Lee and John falling in love.
Beulah Bondi as Mrs. Sargent is a wonderful fit as the warm hearted, proud mother who reflects empathy and kindness to Lee in contrast to the suspicion and distrust her own mother felt towards her. Six years later, Bondi would play another classic Christmas mother in It’s a Wonderful Life. Aunt Emma, played by Elizabeth Patterson, is as kind and loving as her sister, perhaps a bit scatter-brained at times, who offers Lee a dress for a dance that she herself never wore years before for a wedding that was not meant to be.
Later, in a tender yet somewhat troubling scene, Mrs. Sargent tells Lee about the hard work and sacrifice John endured as a boy so he could earn his way through college and law school. Her concern for his career prompts her to gently tell Lee that nothing should endanger John’s future, not even love. It’s a tough pill for Lee to swallow, and after they head back towards New York Lee and John struggle with what the outcome of the trial could be.
He even tries to convince her while they’re taking a short cut through Canada that she could stay there, and U.S. law couldn’t touch her. But she is a different Lee – not the cynical, distrusting, wisecracking thief, but a new Lee with a moral compass pointed north.
When court resumes, John presses her hard, raising his voice, bullying Lee so the jury will want to acquit her. The new Lee recognizes this tactic and decides that in order to salvage John’s career, she must change her plea to guilty. It’s practically a “Gift of the Magi” moment. The ending is ambiguous because we don’t know how long Lee will be incarcerated for. The lovers must have faith in each other and hope for the best.
The chemistry between MacMurray and Stanwyck is exemplary, whether the scene calls for screwball antics, wisecracking banter, courtroom tension, or romantic moments. They made other films together, most notably the classic film noir Double Indemnity three years later. In that film the chemistry continued to work, even as their two characters plotted to murder her husband.
Sturges was frustrated with the film because his script was being cut here and there by the director, but this would only strengthen his resolve to direct his own movies.
Despite what some might consider a downer of an ending, Remember the Night is a Christmas classic that is too often overlooked. Add it to your list of holiday favorites. It will sit nicely between Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Night.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”