Everything Happens at Night

Darryl F. Zanuck cut the budget on this Sonja Henie vehicle Everything Happens At Night. Sonja is confined to only one skating sequence and the ccent on the antics of Ray Milland and Robert Cummings pursuing Sonja and a story.

Milland and Cummings are rival reporters for British and American newspapers and in Switzerland both recognize Maurice Moscovitch a peace activist and Nobel Prize winner thought assassinated by the Nazis.

Like Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon from the MGM film Too Hot To Handle from the previous year when pursuing both a story and Myrna Loy, Milland and Cummings get their hormones intertwined completely with their job. The two really act like school boys over Sonja.

Unlike the MGM film, Zanuck kept this 20th Century Fox product on board with reality. Everything Happens At Night is one of the first films out there to identify Nazi Germany as a villain.

With a short running time Everything Happens At Night keeps a good pace with a vital message laced with comedy.

The story is not even a paper thin one, it is ludicrous.

A famous scientist is killed by Gestapo, and in fact it was his secretary who had been, and there is no mention of his being look-alike, or even similar stature. But the whole world believed, including Gestapo, that it was he who was killed and the survivor to the shoot out was the secretary ! No one bothered to have a look at the survivor? It wasn't the iron curtain period, and even under the curtain, this type of replacement wasn't possible. For safety, the targets, if they are important, were provided body-double, by the state. But when the state itself was the gun wielder, that is simply ruled out.

This was one of the propaganda movies, sponsored by administration and executed by Hollywood, and followed the exact formula of those, ridiculously incompetent and stupid enemy, and virtuous 'countrymen'. This type of misrepresentations brings down the merit of movie, but on another angle, it was necessary to bring warm the blood of the people, before making it to boil. But once the period is over, these movies neither have any historical significance, and least of all artistic one.

Being a propaganda movie, it needed some additional attraction, and most of these, were from the 'imported' stars, who might have been more than ready to compromise, to get into good books. Sonja had been 'pawn'-ed on this angle, and unfortunately, except her name, her skills were not used. Though she didn't have wooden face like a few of the sport/ music celebrities used, but still she wasn't much of an actress. Her talent was the ice-routines, and in this movie, there was only one, and that too forced in. It was a dream sequence, but whereas in 'One in a Million' there was some context, here there were absolutely none, and that too, for a few minutes.

Both the leading men in her life were cads, to use it mildly, she knew and still fell and so much so, that she brought the enemy into the secret lair, where her father was kept hidden !

Well, with this infantile plot, Sonja without show-casing her talents (except a few minutes) it should go back to the can, once its purpose has ended (say December 1941).

I feel sorry for Sonja, but on the other angle, all the actor and actresses of those times were practically white slaves, only a handful could dare (even Bette Davis couldn't), and that too probably since their box-office values far more offset their 'rebellion'.

Two reporters, one American (Robert Cummings) and one British (Ray Milland), track a presumed dead Nobel Prize winner Dr. Norden (Maurice Moscovitch) to a remote Swiss village. They both fall in love with Louise (Sonja Henie), who they don't realize is actually the doctor's daughter.

This was the first Sonja Henie film I've seen, and while it as an inconsequential piece of fluff, it was enjoyable. Henie has an engaging screen presence and Ray Milland is charming as always. Robert Cummings is really annoying though.

Henie only gets one skating number, an excellent number to the Blue Danube Waltz. The rather serious script, which somehow manages to involve the Gestapo, is rather bad at places, but it's all good fun.

Previous Sonja Henie vehicles had comedians doing their shtick, some songs meant to possibly become hits, and many skating routines from the star. This one's different in that the humor comes from the characters-in this case, a couple of reporters (Ray Milland, Robert Cummings) looking for her father while romancing her. Actually, that father figures in a more dramatic shift later in the narrative that I won't reveal here. Let's just say it's a reason there are no songs or slapstick comedy that had been in previous Henie movies and Henie herself only performs one skating dance in a dream sequence this time. It's a nice change of pace so on that note, I recommend Everything Happens at Night. P.S. Among the supporting cast is one William Edmonds as the hotel clerk. If you're familiar with my IMDB reviews, you know I always like to cite when players from my favorite movie-It's a Wonderful Life-are in something else and in IAWL, Edmonds appeared there as Mr. Martini.

Not much can be said for SONJA HENIE's attempt to show her boss Darryl F. Zanuck (whom she couldn't tolerate) that she was an actress as well as a first class skater.

Result: The dullest of all the Henie vehicles--and quite the opposite of another commentator who says "typical Sonja Henie fluff." Nothing could be farther from the truth. This is definitely not a typical Henie vehicle. It's merely a dull story of two reporters (RAY MILLAND and ROBERT CUMMINGS) who seek the truth regarding a Nobel Prize-winning author and who vie for the affections of his daughter. The humor is sparse and the incidents involving Nazis during World War II falls flat.

Sonja does get a chance to act--with less than satisfying results. Furthermore, she only gets a chance to skate once during the entire film.

Milland and Cummings are competent enough but the script is a dull affair and no one comes out of this one smelling like a rose, most of all the writers who concocted this far-fetched story.