n_r_koch Totally charming-- a Cinderella farce that's one of the forgotten peaks of '30s comedy. It's so well-paced that you never feel like you're waiting for the next scene, and it's over fast. It's written like a Continental farce, with familiar high and low and pretend social types, but it has the distinctively sour Brackett-Wilder tone-- plus the in-jokes typical of '30s comedies (Colbert has no French, jokes about her nose, etc.) The actors, even Ameche (a block of wood in the Fox musicals but effective here) all seem unusally relaxed. Maybe it's because they have such good lines to read. It's all high artifice with every line turned and polished; it never touches the ground. Colbert is the American showgirl who floats into Paris high life on a cloud of lies and luck. She gets ensnared in a plot made up by a man (Barrymore) whose wife (Astor) is cheating (with Lederer). Meanwhile, an honest cabbie (Ameche) who's fallen for her turns up and complicates everything. Ameche and Colbert, totally different types, look magnetic in their scenes together-- but maybe it's because she keeps staring at him with those beautiful eyes. What makes it funny is that it's all entirely plausible. Remade in 1945 and 2008, but if you like '30s comedy don't miss this one.

Terrell-4 If "Midnight" as a title seems puzzling, think Cinderella. Except this time our Cinderella is a gold digger with a self-defeating habit of falling for poor taxi drivers. She's also one of the foxiest, funniest and sexiest young ladies in Paris. No staying at home to sweep out the hearth for her. Midnight, released in 1939, was one of the last of the great romantic screwball comedies that Hollywood had learned how to make during the Thirties. Somehow, it was nearly forgotten while others were treasured. With DVD, here's our chance to see again just how good it is, thanks to Claudette Colbert as the ambitious Eve Peabody; Don Ameche as the cab-driving Tibor Czerny; John Barrymore as the rich Georges Flammarion, a somewhat dissipated fairy godfather; Mary Astor as his wife, Helene; and with Mitchell Leisen directing and Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder writing the screenplay. If you're able to watch this movie without smiling, you must have injected too much Botox around your lips. Eve arrives in Paris by train with only the gold lame gown she's wearing and a lonely franc in her purse. She's lost all her money and luggage gambling, hoping to make enough to land a rich daddy. Before long Tibor is driving her around in the rainy night in his taxi while she tries to find a nightclub job singing. No luck. Tibor is obviously smitten, but Eve, who likes him more and more, is determined to get ahead in life. She leaves Tibor putting gas in the taxi and runs off into the rain. She winds up at an exclusive salon filled with wealthy patrons being cultured with classical music. And there she meets the rich Georges Flammarion, whose wife, Helene, is being wooed by the rich Jacques Picot (Francis Lederer). Flammarion, no fool, comes to Eve's assistance when awkward questions are about to be asked, and installs her at the Ritz. He then proposes. Not marriage, but an arrangement where Eve will entice Jacques away from Helene, whom George, it turns out, actually loves. Now we're in elegant mansion country, where there are exquisitely dressed guests doing the conga, where Eve is pretending to be the Baroness Czerny (she had to come up with a name, and Tibor's was handy), where she has Jacques enticed and where suddenly Tibor shows up in white tail and tails pretending to be Baron Czerny, where imaginary children have measles, where there can be a wedding gift of a single roller skate covered with Thousand Island dressing, where mix-ups collide with complications, and where Georges must come to the rescue with flawless double takes. We wind things up in a divorce court with a kiss and an embrace, of course, but only after so many really clever fibs and ingenious set-ups that Brackett and Wilder must have used a chart to keep things clear. Everything works in this sophisticated romantic comedy, and that includes the dialogue by Brackett and Wilder. The movie keeps rushing and fizzing ahead. Colbert dominates but all are at their best (even Ameche, who doesn't come to mind as the first person to cast in a sophisticated comedy). Colbert was just at the cusp of moving into films more suitable to her age (she was 37). In four years she'd be playing the teenage Shirley Temple's mother. She never lost that sexy, clever, resourceful aura of hers, and it's in full force here. To see what I mean, just watch her as Franzi in The Smiling Lieutenant opposite Maurice Chevalier and as Ellie in It Happened One Night. She gives wondrous charm to Eve's ability to come up with plausible alternatives to awkward realities. Barrymore makes a dissipated fairy godfather, but with so much sly charm it's a pleasure to observe his rescues of Eve. Barrymore knows what he's doing, even if by now he had to read his lines from giant cue cards. If you like Hollywood screwball comedies, I think you'll find Midnight is one of the best.

axsmashcrushallthree "Midnight" may be the best of the great 30's screwball comedies, and we're talking about "Libeled Lady", "The Awful Truth", "Bringing Up Baby", "Nothing Sacred", "Ninotchka", and "Holiday", among others.What makes it so extraordinarily great? The movie simply doesn't touch ground throughout the proceedings - a bit like a faster-paced Lubitsch concoction. This is much to talk about, but in particular, the Wilder-Brackett script is loaded with so many memorable jabs and rejoinders that one is grateful for the opportunity to rewind the action to relish them. The pacing is just exactly right, with its many high points, particularly at the point of introduction and re-introduction of characters in various states of array or disarray.With Colbert, Ameche, Lederer, and Astor, it's hard to point to stand-outs, but Barrymore's performance is worth more for what he does not say than for his lines (which he supposedly had to read from cue cards) - his mute reactions of curiosity, skepticism, abashment, and astonishment are priceless. The appearance of Monty Woolley near the end of the film couldn't come at a better time, nor could the end of the film itself! If you like films of this type from this period, this is a must - 10/10.

tony_procek then watch this wonderful film! I could count on two hands the number of films which have genuinely made me laugh out loud, and this is near the top of the list, perhaps even the top, of the list. I first saw it on television many years ago, and I can't remember it ever being shown since - pity. I scoured the net for it and found it on VHS eventually. As others have said, it is right up there with the likes of 'Bringing Up Baby' and 'It Happened One Night' as a sparkling comedy, but the one-liners for me surpass the anything in those films. What a shame it seems to have been forgotten. If, as someone has written, it is to re-made with Reese Witherspoon as Eve Peabody, let's hope it will make people look up this overlooked classic. They really don't make them like this anymore.