Midnight

André G. 🇵🇹3.5

Midnight is a screwball comedy directed by Mitchell Leisen from a script by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. It stars Claudette Colbert as Eve Peabody, an American showgirl who arrives in rainy Paris with nothing but the evening gown she’s wearing. A taxi driver (Don Ameche) helps her out, but she soon reinvents herself as a Hungarian baroness and gets drawn into the marital games of a wealthy couple. Colbert is effortlessly charming and quick-witted, Ameche makes a warm and appealing romantic lead. The dialogue is elegant and playful, the Parisian high-society setting looks glamorous, and the comic twists land with precision. It’s a stylish, sophisticated example of late-1930s Hollywood comedy, witty without being mean, sweet with sharp edges. The film’s characters operate on cynicism and monetary gain, leaving the central romance feeling cold amidst all the deception. The pacing stumbles in the final act as the film relies on forced courtroom absurdities to untangle its complex web of lies. Midnight is a little gem recommended for everyone who enjoys classic screwball.This film is included in my list of the 2500+ Best Films.

theriverjordan4.5

“Midnight” presents the mannered airs of a Lubitsch comedy, but has something... nastier under its façade. It’s no surprise then, to see Billy Wilder’s name listed in the screenplay credits. Director Mitchell Leisen’s film about a gold digging American showgirl in Paris is a tale of con vs con vs The Great Con. The last one, being the highly lampoon-able charade that is the possession of excess wealth. Where Lubitsch always seemed to endow even his cads with a sentimental heart, there is no such mercy from Wilder. Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche are locked in a duel to the lowest denominator. In asking ‘will they or won’t they’ of the two scammers, the urge for them to pair off is partially out of concern - to save wreaking them on the rest of society. Not that society itself makes a refined showing in “Midnight.” The upper crust is embodied in the film by John Barrymore, who, in character and in himself seems jolly drunk off his top the entire runtime. Allegedly, Barrymore was so soused while working that he needed his lines written on cue blackboards. From his goofy onscreen antics, it’s a wonder he had enough sobriety to read them at all. While “Midnight” was screenwriter Wilder’s final straw in not having control over his script as a director, his fingerprints are still smeared all over the film. “Midnight” is a movie that smiles through bared teeth; just like the best of the Wilder works to come. Part of Warm Fuzzies Winter

Jillian Michelle5.0

DON AMECHE IN THAT TIGHT BLACK TURTLENECK.