Ever seen one of those movies that had you falling in love with it, then out of it, within the space of two hours? Midnight (1939) was such a film for me. There's a precarious balancing act going on in most screwball comedies - how easily something potentially charming can be downright annoying - but this is the first time I recall the scales tipping from one to the other so perceptibly.
Claudette Colbert plays Eve, a penniless showgirl who, fleeing a gambling debt in Monte Carlo, finds herself an improbable Cinderella within Paris society, romanced by a dashing European lothario (Frances Lederer), abetted by the wealthy, fretful husband of his mistress (John Barrymore and Mary Astor respectively, looking a million years from Don Juan (1926), rather than a mere thirteen), and ultimately wooed by a humble Hungarian taxi driver (Don Ameche).
The premise is certainly promising - as you'd expect it to be, with a script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett - and the cast is sterling, but once I'd rounded my fourth or fifth twist, I found myself doing something nobody should ever be doing in a comedy: looking at my watch. You know it will all unwind in a satisfactory manner, but waiting for it to do so becomes like the bus that is running five, then ten, then fifteen minutes late. You can feel your patience ebbing away, bit by bit.
Apparently, Billy Wilder thought that it didn't quite work, and I tend to agree with him.
Claudette Colbert plays Eve, a penniless showgirl who, fleeing a gambling debt in Monte Carlo, finds herself an improbable Cinderella within Paris society, romanced by a dashing European lothario (Frances Lederer), abetted by the wealthy, fretful husband of his mistress (John Barrymore and Mary Astor respectively, looking a million years from Don Juan (1926), rather than a mere thirteen), and ultimately wooed by a humble Hungarian taxi driver (Don Ameche).
The premise is certainly promising - as you'd expect it to be, with a script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett - and the cast is sterling, but once I'd rounded my fourth or fifth twist, I found myself doing something nobody should ever be doing in a comedy: looking at my watch. You know it will all unwind in a satisfactory manner, but waiting for it to do so becomes like the bus that is running five, then ten, then fifteen minutes late. You can feel your patience ebbing away, bit by bit.
Apparently, Billy Wilder thought that it didn't quite work, and I tend to agree with him.