REMEMBER THE NIGHT

Program notes: Mitchell Leisen (1898-1972) is an unjustly neglected figure in the history of American movies. Leslie Halliwell's opinion is typical: "His films are mostly romantic trifles, but many have considerable pictorial values" (Filmgoer's Companion, seventh edition; 1983). While it is true that his films became progressively less interesting after 1941, his best work before the United States' entry into World War II ranks with all but the very best films of Lubitsch, Capra, John Ford, and a few other topflight directors of the 30s. Leisen frequently collaborated with such writers as Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Preston Sturges; and one could argue that his decline began, in part, when Wilder and Sturges received permission to direct his own scripts. It was Leisen, however, who imparted a romantic warmth to Brackett and Wilder's Midnight (1939), Arise My Love (1940) and Hold Back the Down (1941), and to Sturges's Easy Living (1937) and Remember the Night that one misses in the hard-edged Brackett-Wilder and Sturges films of the 40s. Leisen added sentiment to the anything-for-a-laugh conventions of screwball comedy and, with a pictorial flair developed during his years as a set and costume designer (for Cecil B. DeMille, among others), set a standard for stylish good taste unsurpassed by any other director of his era. Remember the Night can perhaps fairly be described as a romantic trifle, but this comedy about a lady jewel thief and the prosecuting attorney who impulsively bails her out of jail at Christmastime is a textbook illustration of what used to be meant by the phrase "civilized adult entertainment". (C.H.)

Director: Mitchell Leisen.
Screenplay: Preston Sturges.
Director of photography: Ted Tezlaff.
Editor: Doane Harrison.
Art director: Hans Dreier, Roland Anderson.
Costume designer: Edith Head.
Music: Frederick Hollander.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson, Sterling Holloway.
Director of Production: Mitchell Leisen.
Production company: Paramount Picture.

Conservazione e restauro: Realizzati sul negativo originale a 35mm, con la cooperazione della Universal Pictures. Speciali ringraziamenti alla Library of the Congress, James Watters e David B. Oaken; servizi di laboratorio della YCM; finanziamenti dalla David and Lucile Packard Foundation.