Exclusive“Remember the Night” (1940): Reel Thoughts Christmas Special

You come to the end of a perfect day. Is it all lost? While the chimes ring again. To think what the end of a perfect day Can mean to a tired heart. When the sun goes with a flaming ray And the dear friends come to play. Okay, here are your three clues. Nightcap, crutch, and chains. Easy, that's a Christmas carol. It's a 1930s movie, I'm assuming. That's right. Sailor, farm, magazine. Oh, that's Christmas in Connecticut. Oh, you got it. Okay, now give me a harder one. Train, necktie, seal. Oh, that's a holiday affair. Made me think on that one. I was thinking of the wrong kind of seal. Okay, last one. Bracelet, road trip, popovers. Bracelet, road trip, popovers? That doesn't sound very Christmassy. And your last one did. That's true. Well, is this a well-known holiday classic? Not really, but it should be one of the highest regarded Christmas films. Oh, I know. It's Remember the Night. I'm Rebecca Brannan. I'm Tiffany Brannan. This is Real Thoughts on Cinema. Welcome to our Christmas special. Many holiday classics get in the festive mood with music, snow, and other festive decorations. That's true, and many of them are musical, magical, spiritual, and very colorful. Despite that, one of our favorite classic Christmas films doesn't really have any of those elements. It's older than most holiday classics. It's in black and white. It's very simple. It doesn't feature angels, ghosts, elves, or Santa Claus. It's just a simple, heartwarming story about a family who welcomes a stranger into their home over the holidays, yet it manages to show the true spirit of Christmas. That movie is Remember the Night from 1940. It follows a very attractive young shoplifter who is caught by a pawnbroker when she tries to hawk an expensive bracelet she's just stolen from well-known jewelers a few days before Christmas. The assistant district attorney, Jack Sargent, is called in on the case just a few hours before he's planning to leave for his yearly trip home for the holidays, as it is Christmas Eve. When he sees that the jury is being moved by the Christmas spirit and her lawyer's rather theatrical plea of hypnosis, he gets the case postponed until after Christmas by saying they need to consult a psychiatrist about this theory of hypnosis. However, when he sees the young woman's distress at having to spend Christmas in jail, he has a bondsman bail her out. However, the bondsman misunderstands his intentions and brings her up to his apartment. Further moved to help the young woman, he buys her dinner when he finds out she has no money and no place to stay and then offers to take her home for the holidays when he finds out that she also lives in Indiana and hasn't been home since she left when she was 15. However, she is shunned by her cruel mother and he ultimately decides to take her to his home where she finally gets to meet a true family. As they start to develop romantic feelings for each other, Jack's mother, the only member of his family whom he has told the truth about the young woman, is concerned about how she could damage his career and the looming court case sets a damper over their budding romance. This film was produced by Paramount Pictures. It was both produced and directed by Mitchell Lyson. The screenplay was written by Preston Sturges. It stars Barbara Stanwyck as Lee Leander, Fred McMurray as Jack Sargent, with supporting actors Viola Bondy, Elizabeth Patterson and Sterling Holloway. As we mentioned, this film doesn't have a lot of the usual things you expect to see in a Christmas film. That's right, but it does all take place right during the main holiday season since it really begins in December with the shoplifting and the main first scene is on Christmas Eve and then it ends shortly after the New Year. Right, so it is a Christmas film kind of in the time of year when it's set, but I would say Christmas isn't the main theme of it. It's sort of a melodrama set against the backdrop of Christmas. But as you mentioned before, the true spirit of Christmas is so beautifully exemplified in this film and I think that's why it's been one of our family's favorites for as long as I can remember. And many films which are considered Christmas classics more than this feature fewer Christmas scenes. Very true. They just have one main Christmas scene, but this actually is the whole Christmas time. The screenplay, as you mentioned, was by Preston Sturges and this was actually the last film that he wrote but didn't direct because he was rather distressed by a lot of the cuts that were made to his script by the director. So after that he swore he was going to direct his own films. Yes. And there's a real simplicity and honesty about this film that I think makes it very endearing and very believable because it's not too flashy. There's not a lot of background music. You just really believe these people are who they're supposed to be. And I think it's such a great showcase for mainly these two actors. Absolutely. Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray. They both were really multifaceted performers. Barbara Stanwyck could play very tough. She could be sort of a femme fatale. She could be comedic. And here she gets to do almost a little of all those things. She obviously is hardened at the beginning being this female convict but then as the film progresses we see her quickly begin to soften as she remembers her childhood and she's touched by the kindness that this man who should be her enemy as the assistant district attorney that he shows her such kindness and care. She's really moved when she realizes he doesn't want anything from her. He just felt bad that she had to spend Christmas in jail. And then when she learns that he also is a Hoosier they begin to bond over that. Especially during their long road trip through the very rural roads to get back to Indiana. Yes, I think Barbara Stanwyck really shines in this role. She's just such an amazing actress. I'm kind of newly touched by just how wonderful she is in this part every time I watch it because there's so much depth and their relationship is wonderful and of course Fred Murray is also a wonderful actor. I think there are more actors I would say that I'm just a really huge fan of than actresses but Barbara Stanwyck is one of the exceptions to that rule because like you said she could play so many different types and this role I think is one of her best so I think it's a great introduction to Barbara Stanwyck. I'm very impressed by her in this part. You do see her of course at the beginning walking down the street in the scene when she steals the bracelet but I feel like the first moment you really notice her you see a close angle of her is in the courtroom because she's wearing the hat that kind of obscures her face and her lawyer is saying, Miss Liliander, sometimes known as Anna Rose Malone and Jack says sometimes known as a lot of other things and she just turns and looks at him and that look is so intense just like immediately really impressed by her and then she goes back and forth throughout the film between this kind of hardened demeanor and being almost like a little girl in some ways because she left home when she was 15 she didn't really get a chance to grow up in a really normal way she had to grow up really fast so there are some experiences that she hasn't had and that she is experiencing things for the first time during this time she spends with his family it's really an amazing thing to see in this very worldly character. That's true. There's a great support from all the character actors who are in this most notably in the extended sequence back home at his house we have his mother played by Beulah Bondi who is very well known for being the mother in It's a Wonderful Life that's right a very famous Christmas movie and then his spinster aunt, Aunt Emmy played by Elizabeth Patterson and then their sort of lazy houseboy who's Willie played by Sterling Holloway and he provides some comic relief very well known for having voiced Winnie the Pooh yes, and many other Disney films the simple tenderness but then just the honest banter between them they scold each other, they talk back and forth it's very real and very believable and it's charming to see the old-fashioned farmhouse and the difference between how modern cities were by 1940 you see in New York his apartment very modern the courtroom as opposed to in a rural area of Indiana they don't even seem to have electricity in their house they're just using gas lamps and his mother and aunt are still wearing almost Victorian clothes and so there's sort of a contrast between the new world of which Jack's a part but then the old world which will always be his home right, and then the charming scene when they have an old-fashioned barn dance and they're all wearing very clothes from an earlier period is it around the turn of the century? because Aunt Emmy encourages Lee to wear an old dress of hers which was in fact going to be her wedding dress although she never married she twiddled around with the idea one summer and that scene which was on New Year's Eve is really when Lee and Jack fall in love because she comes down the stairs in this beautiful satin gown and he's very impressed and even though at this time in the 40s women still were very feminine they weren't as exaggeratedly feminine as they had been 40 years earlier at the end of the Victorian era and apparently Lee is planning to wear just pants because it's easier and Aunt Emmy is just horrified wearing pants to a dance because women belong in skirts and that scene had such a big impression on me that when I was around 12 or so I decided to just only wear skirts mainly because of that scene it's amazing it's a great corset lacing scene I always love a good corseting scene and it's interesting and I appreciate that they don't make a big joke out of it as some movies do and did like exaggerating how painful or how difficult it was she is a bit overwhelmed at first she's like, you didn't really wear all these things, did you? but then for the rest of the scene when she's in the dress she seems quite comfortable with it so it's interesting to see the historical look at modern times and at what was already a historic time in those days my outfit is based on the first costume which Lee wears in the courtroom she has a coat but then we continue to see her wearing it on the first evening at the sergeant home it's a simple white blouse with a longer black skirt and a white belt a necklace and at the beginning of the film she's wearing a hat with large feathers which unfortunately get eaten by a cow my outfit is inspired by Lee's final costume in the film which you also see her wear once earlier it's a black suit with a tiny white polka dot pattern a white blouse underneath a very fashionable black hat with white accents and black gloves many Christmas films are very emotional for people mainly because they're very nostalgic and they won't kind of make you tear up and this film is top of the list in terms of that because it's just so beautiful and touching there are multiple scenes but especially the ending is quite a tearjerker the stark contrast is what makes a lot of stories really powerful absolutely like in A Christmas Carol you have the contrast between Scrooge and the Cratchits or in It's a Wonderful Life you have the kind family and mean old Mr. Potter and in this film you have the contrast of two mothers and showing how a difference in upbringing can completely change someone's life you have Jack and Lee grew up around 50 miles away from each other both in rural Indiana they didn't have a lot of money and yet he grew up to have this loving family and then become a successful lawyer whereas she became a criminal and it's so obvious in the scene when he brings her to visit her mother and just one of the cruelest mothers in movie history this film gives an amazing performance and it's so short too it's a tiny little piece of the film and I always thought it was interesting comparing it to I know It's a Wonderful Life is a much more well-known film to a lot of people the scene during the sequence when George Bailey is seeing a world without him you see Bula Bandi is playing his mother but this hardened version of her I've always thought that's what Lee's mother is like and I always thought that's kind of an interesting comparison to make that's sort of a reference for anyone who knows that film and not this one but there's even a bit of dialogue referencing they both as probably adolescents took some money that their respective mothers had been saving for another purpose and with Lee her mother called her a crook in front of the whole town so she couldn't get a job and pay her back as she planned to she'd only borrowed the money but Jack's mother just made him understand and then he worked very hard to pay her back the money and he says you made me understand no dear it was love that made you understand so you see how it wasn't that Jack was inherently a better person he was raised with love and shown the difference between right and wrong in a loving way instead of the mother who always made her feel like she was worthless no good and she apparently sort of talked that way about her father too right like no good just like her father Jack's mother is so wise when he tells her the truth about this young woman who's brought home she immediately says she probably didn't get enough love as a child having seen her mother she's absolutely right so it's such a striking example of these two families and even the way they light it both don't have electricity yet the sergeant home is full of light and love they've got the fire burning and it's always very warm whereas the house is pitch dark even though both her mother and stepfather are in there and she comes walking out with the lantern to say haunted house and then when they leave she blows out the candle because her soul is dark so it's very dramatic but there's never any heavy handed symbolism in this film again not a lot of dramatic background music it's very simple very sparse yes the song My Indiana Home is woven throughout the film I believe you hear seven different instrumental arrangements of it and the only Christmas music featured is a brief quote of Jingle Bells in the background music during the opening scene when she's walking down the street but there's a beautiful Christmas tree there's stringing popcorn for the tree and then a very touching scene on Christmas Eve when Lee plays the piano and Willie sings The End of a Perfect Day yes because it starts with Jack is encouraged to play Swanee River on the piano because he took piano lessons when he was a boy and then Lee offers to play the piano and Willie wants to sing The End of a Perfect Day and Mrs. Sargent says oh Willie oh I can so can everybody else the song The End of a Perfect Day was written both the words and the music by Carrie Jacobs Bond but she wrote the poem at the Mission Inn in Riverside that's amazing and she was in her fourth floor room watching the sun set by Mount Rubidoux and the beauty of the setting sun inspired her to write that poem and then three months later she wrote the melody when she was staying in the Mojave Desert and it was published and became an immediate best seller selling millions of copies and then all the popular singers of the day and for the next several decades recorded it it makes more sense now that she says so can anybody else and because it was so popular for years at sunset every day at the Mission Inn they would play that song on the carillon it's really beautiful that adds a whole other level of beauty to that scene which was already very touching without any history behind it and it helps you understand how those songs that they used at the time would have been meaningful in that day I think this film is very unique in the Christmas genre and I think a lot of that is because of the era in which it was made not that it was the only classic Christmas film of course but if this film had been made in any other era other than the Golden Age it would be very different yes it would I think that's largely because this was during the heyday of the Motion Picture Production Code as overseen by the Production Code Administration with Joseph Breen as its leader and under the code there were very strict rules on what they could and couldn't show and rather than restricting creativity these guidelines actually encouraged more creativity especially from brilliant writers like Preston Sturges because it encouraged them to use their creativity and their cleverness instead of being obvious like comparing it to a film that Barbara Stanwyck made just seven years earlier Babyface it's so explicit about a woman who again comes from a bad upbringing and just uses very unscrupulous means to use her womanhood to get to the top and it makes me so sad that a lot of people will look at a film like Babyface and be like oh this is such a great strong female character and then once the code was put in place they didn't have strong female characters like this anymore and that just breaks my heart every time people say that because they're so wrong yeah and you look and it's like how is that empowering to show this woman selling herself to get somewhere yeah as opposed to a character like this one who learns to have respect for herself and she realizes she has to own up to what she's done so she can be an honest member of society right she learns a very important message and there's great strength in that I actually love this film even more now having learned about the code and being sort of a film historian I like to cite this film actually as a great example of self-regulation as it was called not censorship because there's a part in the code where it says when depicting crime and criminals you can sympathize with the criminal but not with the crime and I think this film does that so well and it's handling that very difficult issue and also they get into the issue of how it's so hard to prosecute a woman I think that's kind of an interesting point to touch on yes and the code also had to deal with how certain crimes or sins were more distasteful and more likely to be censored by the regional censor boards if women were committing them rather than if men were right and this film really handles that very interestingly and it shows how first Jack starts to redeem Lee by showing her the right way but then ultimately she has to hold him to his own moral standard as she realizes that love for her could perhaps corrupt him it's kind of like Thais the opera where the priest converts this wicked woman but ultimately she must be the strong one and keep him from temptation yes sort of a spoiler alert here but a more standard kind of happily ever after ending would be we realize that she has reformed senior the way she's reformed so she could be acquitted even though she is guilty and then they could sort of ride off in the proverbial sunset together but what makes the film so beautiful and so powerful is that she makes the choice to plead guilty to kind of save him from himself because she sees he's trying to lose the case on purpose and just what his mother so sweetly pleaded with her not to get in the way of his he's worked so hard to get to where he is in this career and that's even though his love for her is very admirable that he could kind of destroy himself because of love for her and that's really where the Christmas message comes in the message of unselfishness and putting other people before yourself as well as the generosity in giving how on that Christmas morning when they celebrate Aunt Emmy and his mother piece together different gifts because they don't want her to feel left out it's just such the Christmas spirit I think that this film could be enjoyable to people who aren't as familiar with old movies because it is so representative of the era and I think Christmas more than any other time of the year is a time when people are feeling nostalgic I mean when else can you hear original recordings from the 1940s walking down in the mall very true I'm always struck with that it's like how about that you're hearing Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby on mainstream sound systems yeah so I think because it is a Christmas film people want to look back and think about old traditions and just the charming Christmas tree with the popcorn being strung on it and the old-fashioned barn raising is so heartwarming and just holiday festive I think it's really a time of year that people could enjoy that sort of thing it's very snowy and wintry throughout there aren't a lot of really dramatic snow scenes but I think the most striking winter weather scene is the very brief sequence in Niagara as they're driving back they stop by Niagara Falls and you see the falls frozen over and it's just amazing that's so amazing that footage that they got of that it's just like the ultimate romantic scene in front of the partially frozen falls so that adds a little bit of winter magic to it this film is available to rent or purchase on all the major streaming platforms including Amazon Prime Video YouTube Google Play as well as on DVD where you could purchase it at Barnes and Noble on Amazon or at Walmart join us next time for our New Year's holiday special as we talk about a wonderful classic film which actually celebrates all the holidays but has an especially poignant New Year's scene thank you for watching goodbye and Merry Christmas!