Salubfoto
It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.
Gurlyndrobb
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Teddie Blake
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
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.
bob-1070
This is available on DVD as part of Sony's "Icons of Screwball Comedy" series. I like Loretta Young, but she is certainly no "icon" of the genre, nor can this movie even be described as a "Screwball Comedy." Perhaps my disappointment in the film was based on faulty expectations. It's just a B picture from Columbia, clearly made on a shoestring budget, and what comedy there is in the film is pretty forced and obvious, exemplified by a tedious gag in which Brian Aherne has trouble opening a door. The plot -- a couple move into a building where a murderer lives -- was more entertaining when the Three Stooges did it. Even the solution to the mystery is forgettable. Young and Aherne are okay, but have nowhere near the chemistry of William Powell and Myrna Loy in their many films together. I'll give props to the cinematography: there is some fine work with limited light which, in some scenes, disguise the stage-bound nature of the film. Bottom line: this one's not worth your time.
dougdoepke
Sprightly comedy-mystery that holds up thanks mainly to Brian Aherne's expert fumbling with petty annoyances. All in all, he cooks roasts about as well as he opens doors, that is, not without considerable practice. He's supposed to be a mystery writer, but as a real-life sleuth, he's about as effective as an American Clouseau. I think I detect some subtle spoofing of the many amateur detectives of the period (Ellery Queen, The Saint, Boston Blackie, et. al.). And it doesn't hurt that Charlie Chan (Sydney Toler) turns up as a police inspector. Watch Jeff (Aherne) get decked in a fight, get about every clue wrong, get weak at the sight of a corpse, and generally behave like the anti-Sherlock. Good thing he's back- stopped by gorgeously competent wife Nancy (Loretta Young). As the charmingly inept Jeff, Britisher Aherne is simply superb, and, I would think, at the apex of his American career. Also, it appears the concept may have started off as a stage play since the action is mainly confined to Jeff & Nancy's dingy apartment. However that may be, the supporting cast is a collection of lively and familiar faces, especially Hollywood's favorite dumb cop, rubber-faced Donald McBride (Bolling), along with the grandly smitten furniture mover James Burke. The fractured events all move at a sure-handed pace thanks to veteran comedy director Richard Wallace. My one complaint is that better use is not made of the best dragon-lady of the period, Gale Sondergaard (Mrs. Devoe), who's often sinister enough to scare the stitches off Frankenstein's neck. Here however she plays it fairly boring and straight. Anyway, it's a nifty little comedy with a good mix of laughs and chills, and I expect war-weary audiences of the day (1942) found it great escapist entertainment that holds up well, even today. (Also—be sure to catch the amusingly apt very last frame.)
moonspinner55
Pithy, breezy knock-off of "The Thin Man", here with mystery writer Brian Aherne solving the murder of man near his Greenwich Village rental with help from fluttery, eternally-game spouse Loretta Young. The pieces of this comically convoluted set-up are almost impossible to put together on one's own, and the Columbia back-lot provides a samey visual look throughout the picture which feels cheap. Aherne, with his upper-class diction and chipper chit-chat, works hard at his double-takes and pratfalls; Young works even harder at playing the feminine sidekick. Neither star is embarrassing, and in fact are superior to the material. Gale Sondegaard stands out in an otherwise weak supporting cast. A product of its time, and probably dated already in '43. ** from ****
