el Cambion A Night to Remember (1942) Brian Aherne, Loretta Young (and Sydney Toler shows up as Inspecor Hankins) Mystery & SuspenseHam-handed tone. Rated *** but I think that's two stars too many.Aherne, an Errol Flynn clone, a mystery author, tries valiantly (and fails) to overcome bad script. Loretta Young same. I just don't remember her being such a novice actor.Even the incidental music is too light, wrong tone IMO. Befits a comedy.The mystery aspect is okay. Toler shows up as hard-nosed police inspector after a dead body is found in our couple's apartment. (The TV guide says "apartment" but actually it was the backyard.)Toler comes across as an extra-crabby Charlie Chan.This movie is really not done very well, I don't know how it rated ***. It's just clumsy and inept in tone, shifting to comedy often, overly broad, tries too hard and poorly acted & directed IMO. There's a difference between wonderfully unintentionally campy and intentionally exaggerated and manipulative.

Robert J. Maxwell A mystery writer, Aherne, and his wife, Young, move into a basement apartment in Greenwich Village. The furniture is late, the electric power is off, and there is a great deal of confusion. The apartments upstairs of full of kooks or suspicious characters. That first night, and the next day, everybody seems to be rushing around, eavesdropping, screaming, getting locked in closets -- and the next day the police find a dead body in the back yard.The police begin an investigation under Sidney Toler, who looks just like Charlie Chan even without Asian make up. He's aided by Donald MacBride, a familiar character actor with a built-in suspicious sneer. Aherne and Young decide to involve themselves in the case and do more rushing around both within the apartment and within the sets that pass for New York City.Loretta Young is breathless and pretty. Brian Aherne overacts, sometimes to the point of embarrassment. His eyes pop, his mouth gapes, and he projects discomfort the way a traffic light signals traffic.But I don't really think that anyone could do much with what is essentially a B movie script. Substitute Chester Morris for Aherne and Gloria Stuart for Young, reduce the running time from 91 to 60 minutes and you have a fine, diverting 1930s entertainment, fit for a second feature and for Saturday matinées, where the kids will appreciate gags like Loretta Young being trapped in the basement coal shed, a load of call showering down upon her while she shrieks, the coal man asking, "Hey, what are you doing down there?", and Young shouting sarcastically, "I'm hanging out my laundry; what do you think?"

misctidsandbits I remember when first seeing this film, being pleasantly surprised at the expertise of Ms. Young. Not many realize her long career began at the close of the silent film era (she was about 13), and that her talent was respected in the film industry. Like a lot of later generation viewers, I had the image of her TV program in mind, through reruns. That makes some of her older movies an especial treat. Like a lot of good actresses, she decried being used for a string of weak projects, and this one was an improvement over many of the previous phoned-in type roles. And, like many others also, she came into a better field of work after her contract expired and she began freelancing. I thought she and Aherne did a good job together in this venue, popular at the time.

oldblackandwhite If we may get a couple misconceptions about A Night To Remember out of the way --1) In spite of what a gaggle of monkey-read-monkey-write critics have said, A Night To Remember bears little resemblance to The Thin Man series. The couple in this picture are not rich like Nick and Nora Charles, but of modest means at best. They are renting a seedy basement flat in Greenwich Viliage, not plush Park Avenue digs like the Charleses. They are not alcoholics like Nick and Nora. They do not have a dog. Nick was boozy, but not bumbling like the amateur sleuth here. He was an ex-cop, and a tough and very competent one, not a wimpy mystery writer playing detective.2) Those who ordered a DVD of this picture thinking it was going to be the 1958 British docudrama about the Titanic disaster of the same title perhaps need a reading comprehension course as much as a writing course before embarking on the perilous path of spinning movie reviews. No doubt it would likewise be helpful if such persons would limit their consumption of alcoholic beverages while ordering DVD's.A Night To Remember is a sparkling screwball comedy/mystery with the requisite goofy hero and goofy heroine, played with brilliant incompetence by Brian Aherne and Loretta Young. The goofy cops are led by a de-Orientalized Sidney Toler sporting the same Chan dead-pan, a ridiculously wide Fedora, and a wise-cracking, trigger-happy Donald McBride as number one assistant. The supporting cast rounds up the usual suspects of nicely sinister supporting players, including Gale Sondergaard, Cy Kendall, and Blanche Yurka. Expertly directed by Richard Wallace with perfect pacing and timing, beautifully filmed by Joseph Walker, cleverly scored by Werner R. Heymann, and wonderfully acted by the entire cast. Aherne and Ms. Young both had a fine touch for comedy in spite of what the wags have said. Be aware that the effete left-wing literati and their film class graduate toadies who dominate movie reviews on this site and elsewhere have it out for Loretta Young because of her good Catholic girl conservatism. They will unfairly denigrate her performances and her pictures at every chance.Witty, breezy, glossy, hilarious, engaging, entertaining, and perfectly charming, a delight from beginning to end, A Night To Remember represents Old Hollywood Comedy in peak form.