"Through moonlit mystery, your eyes are telling me, this is the night I've waited for. This is the night I'll hear the story eternal. Tonight we can't conceal the ecstasy we feel, though with the dawn, romance will be gone. Tonight is ours. This is the night."
A silly pre-Code sex farce that isn't a masterclass in anything in particular, but had enough elements that I ended up enjoying it, and probably rounded up a half tick. Without regurgitating the premise, some highlights:
Not so great were the two separate references to wife beating, the acceptance of which in comedy in this period and for decades (e.g. Jackie Gleason's oft-repeated line in The Honeymooners, "To the moon, Alice, to the moon") is always jarring, and of course indefensible. It's the only low note in an otherwise, lighthearted, entertaining film.
A silly pre-Code sex farce that isn't a masterclass in anything in particular, but had enough elements that I ended up enjoying it, and probably rounded up a half tick. Without regurgitating the premise, some highlights:
- Thelma Todd having the dress underneath her fur coat torn off completely by the door of her car, leading to the cheeky and possibly disagreeable song "Madame Has Lost Her Dress" (including lyrics like "her breasts, her knees, let all work cease"), a joke that's reprised.
- Cary Grant in his first film appearance, toting giant javelins and singing some of his dialogue. It's crazy that his character would skip the Olympics and that his wife would be cheating on him with Roland Young, but did I mention it's silly?
- The search for a woman to play Young's Wife, someone so gorgeous that "when she walks down the street, her torso almost talks," leading to Lili Damita, because Claire Dodd (in an uncredited cameo) doesn't want the job. Initially she's too "Sunday-schoolish" for Young, but then via a series of winks, striptease, and use of the curtains to create a slinky little dress, she's in.
- The musical number with the porters at the station tossing bags up into the train, then all with their palms out asking for a tip.
- Damita (Chou-Chou) quietly driving the other characters wild, or making them jealous. There's the misunderstanding with Young's lack of sleep being due to the two of them having sex all night, and a kiss from him at the breakfast table that's so good it makes her dizzy, upsetting Todd. There's Grant hitting on her, upsetting Young. There's even the servant Bunny (Charles Ruggles) wanting to get into the act, upsetting Young further.
- Venice, which I'm always a sucker for, even if it's brief, mostly stock footage. The flower petals being inadvertently knocked off a bridge by a couple of strangers kissing, and falling to the gondola below, was a lovely little touch.
- Young delivered dry one-liners, like in response to Grant asking him, "Didn't you ever go in for athletics?" quipping "I used to 'jump' at conclusions." Or, when Damita is taking deep breaths and stretching her chest in front of the camera and says not to worry, she's just breathing, him telling her to stop it, because it "sounds immoral." He gets a similar line in when he's intoxicated by her perfume and says it's "de-moralizing."
- Thelma Todd in that barely there dress at the end, my goodness. It's tragic that she would die just three years later, at 29, under suspicious circumstances.
Not so great were the two separate references to wife beating, the acceptance of which in comedy in this period and for decades (e.g. Jackie Gleason's oft-repeated line in The Honeymooners, "To the moon, Alice, to the moon") is always jarring, and of course indefensible. It's the only low note in an otherwise, lighthearted, entertaining film.