Tonight Is Ours

My mother recently (well, maybe not so recently) got majorly interested in the Life and Times and Films of Fredric March and found out about people who had taped his nolongeravailable movies from TV and we got this along with them and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this one because even though it is a bit unrealistic it is full of some of the most poetically romantic speeches I've ever heard. Maybe it's just me, but every time I watch a good Fredric March movie and listen to those melodramatic love scenes I distinctly hear harps playing in the air. It's interesting to me that very often in his movies he does all the poetic speeches and the women are just supposed to gaze and reply, "Yes, dahling." The costumes are interesting, particularly the ones they wear at the beginning. Claudette Colbert's head appears to float upon a great cloud of fluffy collar, and gaudy sparkles and spangles make it even more... well... interesting.

I won't say anything about the plot but it's quite a good story even if it is a bit improbable. It would be so nice if they'd restore it and re-release it along with so many of the other good Fredric movies from way back then.

I implore you with all my heart to try to see this on TV if you can find out when it will be on. It's not very deep but it's fun to watch.

I'm convinced the only reason Claudette Colbert won an Oscar for It Happened One Night is because Hollywood was so used to seeing her as a serious dramatic actress, they were shocked that she could also perform in a silly comedy. And, since the Academy so often rewards against-type performances, she won the statue. Tonight is Ours is another of her classic dramas, even though the premise is quite simple: a princess falls for a commoner.

Claudette Colbert and Fredric March meet at a masked ball, each expecting another person in a similar costume. They start their acquaintance with an unintentional kiss, and before long, they've fallen in love. When Claudette's royal duties potentially interfere with her love life, will she follow her heart or her family?

This movie isn't really spectacular, and there are far better romances out there, but if you want to see Claudette in her younger, dramatic days, you can rent it. Then again, she made tons of dramas before her Oscar, so you can rent a different one, like Imitation of Life, Manslaughter, or Cleopatra.

So forgettable that after 24 hours I have already forgotten what this was about and how on earth I managed to sit through this utter tedium. You might think you've seen this but you've probably not, it's because it's identical to so much other polished hot air made about the same time.

Straight from the horrendous SIGN OF THE CROSS, Fredric March, still wearing DeMille's lipstick and Claudette Colbert found themselves making the same mindless pseudo-intellectual trash which Paramount just couldn't seem to stop making. Possibly there was a legal requirement that this story and variations of it had to comprise at least 50% of all Hollywood production? To stand out from the crowd these films had to have something different about them or be a bit special but this is so incredibly samey and predictable it's a real test of endurance making it to the end.

ROMAN HOLIDAY made a few decades later was ok but switching the story around, THE KING AND THE CHORUS GIRL (1937) was probably the funniest of this tired and trite tale. This however, despite the obvious big budget, Mr March being his usual likeable self and Claudette Colbert being as wonderful as always, is just the blandest of the bland. There's nothing bad about this, you can't even dislike it because it engenders so little engagement with you that you're physically unable to actually feel any emotions towards it whatsoever.

"Tonight Is Ours," Paramount's version of Noel Coward's one and only Ruritanian romance (written when he was a mere 22 years of age!) is good enough to hold the interest even in the form of the damaged old print available on Internet Archive. Some stretches are dull but salvaged to a degree by some good acting, fun costumes and elegant sets and furnishings (including a stunning Art Deco telephone). The whole thing is a gossamer light, slick and flippant story about a young couple who meet by chance at a masked ball. It turns out that she (Claudette Colbert) is a princess on the lam from the kingdom of Krayia who longs to escape the strictures of royal life and he (Fredric March) is... well, a wealthy person whose means of support is never addressed in the script.

When this film was made Colbert was in the midst of her meteoric rise to top-drawer Hollywood stardom (she was playing female leads in 5-6 films a year during this period). Early on she is shot from bad angles wearing an unflattering clown costume. In these scenes March comes off as the pretty one. Like Robert Montgomery, Clark Gable and Fred Astaire, he looked dandy in dress suits. And Colbert could look magnificent in Travis Banton's slinky gowns, which she finally gets to wear after the first reel or so.

Too often the script requires Colbert to weep and wail about her dilemma, torn between loyalty to her kingdom and love for March, and while she was highly skilled at bursting into onscreen tears, everything has its limits. Noel Coward's famous wit is only sparsely on display. One line stands out: As March prepares cocktails he says, "You don't need champagne; champagne needs you." But it's hard to tell if it's Coward's line or one by the adaptor, Edwin Justus Mayer.

In a night club scene we hear a fragment of hot jazz music which is identical that which is played on a gramophone in Paramount's "Shanghai Express" when Louise Closser Hale drops in on Marlene Dietrich and Anna Mae Wong in their train compartment.

This movie is credited as being directed by Stuart Walker, but apparently most of the credit can be given to Mitchell Leisen in what is effectively his debut as director (he is down as assistant director).

Given their respective careers this is not so hard to believe. Leisen had a much more notable career but for the most part is not so well known today with most of his 40+ movies unavailable commercially. A recent release of two of his most well known - Midnight and Easy Living on DVD is most welcome. I'm going to watch all of his movies as chronologically as possible and post a review on each one on this site.

I found the first part of the movie stunning and skillfully directed with some great out of this world fancy dress costumes. In the second part the movie slows down but with some great interior sets borrowed from some earlier Paramount Lubitsch movies. It is also unmistakeably pre-Code - certain scenes would not be possible not too long into the future.

A youngish Claudette Colbert looks ravishing, but unlike the previous commentators I have never quite seen the romantic appeal of Frederic March. Paul Cavanaugh has a role very much against the usual stereotype, and Alison Skipworth is most enjoyable as Grand Duchess Emilie.

Still worth watching, especially the first part.