REMEMBER THE NIGHT: a romantic comedy that's more than a rom-com

REMEMBER THE NIGHT is a romantic comedy with everything that's lacking in 'No Strings Attached.'  Great performances, likeable characters and a story which moves forward rather than round in circles.
Made and set in 1940 it stars Fred McMurray as hot shot New York City district attorney John Sergeant who finds himself falling for the woman he's trying to put behind bars. Lee Leander (Barbara Stanwyck) is a habitual shoplifter, but it's Christmastime and Sergeant knows that juries don't like to convict at this time of year so he gets her trial postponed. He arranges to have her released on bail but finds she's been entrusted to his care, so he invites her to join him on a roadtrip home to Ohio where they both have family. This is in the days before interstates so rather than heading straight down I-80 they face a painfully slow journey along back roads through small towns giving them time to discover a slow-burning attraction for one another.
MacMurray and Stanwyck would make film noir history four years later with 'Double Indemnity' playing a pair of immoral characters who absolutely deserve one another. Here, in their first on-screen pairing they are considerably more innocent and appealing but there's already an irresistible spark between them. Sure Stanwyck is a bad girl but she's got her reasons and they're mostly to do with her upbringing. It's circumstance rather than character that's driven her to steal, and as MacMurray discovers during their journey west it's frighteningly easy to cross the line from law abiding to law breaking.
With a script by Preston Sturges and direction from the stylish Mitchell Leisen, REMEMBER THE NIGHT is a warm and witty affirmation of the innate goodness in everyone, and the importance of family. The scene where Lee reunites with her estranged mother (a chilling performance by Georgia Caine) tells us all we need to know about why her daughter turned out like she did, and stands in stark contrast with the warm welcome extended to Lee by John's family.
Stanwyck is absolutely adorable as the young woman whose steely exterior conceals a tender heart. Inside she's just crying out for someone to give her the break which'll let her get back on the straight and narrow. MacMurray's image today is as a rather dull and bland leading man but he's surprisingly virile here and more than holds his own against Stanwyck's star wattage. There's no question that he's right for what's wrong in Lee's life.
Very few films released today come anywhere remotely near to creating the kind of uplifting magic that REMEMBER THE NIGHT achieves so seemingly effortlessly. That's why this film deserves to be called a romantic comedy and not just a rom com.

CHRISTMAS IN JULY: I'm happy it could not be Christmas everyday

CHRISTMAS IN JULY was the second film to be directed by the yet to become legendary Preston Sturges and on the basis of this it's difficult to discern exactly what all the fuss is about.
Sturges' latter day reputation as a great comedy director rests on a handful of comedies he made in the 1940s and this isn't one of them. The story is dragged down by the two central characters, Jimmy MacDonald and Betty Casey, who are so sappy that it's impossible to empathise with them. They both deserve a good slap.
Not only are they wetter than the Atlantic Ocean but there's something a little disturbing about the 36 year old Dick Powell in the part of a young man on the make. Jimmy MacDonald is a supposedly humorous spin on the kind of characters Powell made his name playing in Warner Bros backstage musicals in the early 1930s. Back then he looked convincing as a fresh faced juvenile trying to make his way in the world and woo the equally young lady of his dreams. By 1940 he had assumed a more mature appearance but here he is still living at home, still trying to make it in the rough and tumble of New York City, and still wooing his young lady.
Guy Kibbee, Hugh Herbert, Warren Williams and all those other members of the Warner Bros stock company whose job it was in those early musicals to place obstacles in the path of young Dick's route to happiness and success have been replaced by lesser known actors such as Raymond Walburn, William Demerest and Harry Hayden but otherwise the film pretty rehashes the themes and scenarios which were presented to much better effect in "Gold Diggers of 1933", "Footlight Parade" and "42nd Street."
Preston Sturges is admired for his acerbic characters and sharply witty dialogue but there's precious little of either here. CHRISTMAS IN JULY is a very minor entry in his canon and if you want to discover just why he is so admired by many cinephiles I recommend you start with the movie he made immediately afterwards.
"The Lady Eve" with Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda and a wonderful cast of character actors has everything that this film doesn't.