Remember Last Night?

Report from Cinesation 2006: REMEMBER LAST NIGHT? (****) The notes suggested that James Whale sold this idea to Universal by comparing it to The Thin Man-- but it's The Thin Man as written by Evelyn Waugh, a tale of bright young things drinking and partying fast enough to keep despair at bay, and a reminder that Whale belonged to the same generation of artists formed by World War I who produced things like The Sun Also Rises and Goodbye To All That.

A group of young friends party the night away on a series of amazing Art Deco sets, and when they wake up in the morning, one of them has been murdered. As the mystery-plot mechanics take over, it loses some of its brittle, dark charm, relying on Arthur Treacher in the Thesiger part as a mordant butler for laughs. But at its best this is one of the most striking comedies of the 30s, energetic and gay (in the old sense-- mostly) and often very funny, yet worldly and almost bleak at the same time. If only the solution of the mystery could have paid off the film's tone thematically. The collector's print shown, incidentally, was 16mm, but could have been 35mm for how beautifully it showed off the film's remarkable sets.

It's a wild party all right, with a lot of content that would curl the hair of the average movie- goer nowadays. While we in the 21st Century have been brutalized to boredom by the sight of a person's entrails being blown via shotgun blast onto the walls like some kind of macabre Rorshach, these folks would have been mortified at such a sight. But abuse people? While mid-party, even before the first piece of significant action, we are treated to profligate drinking, both individual and group (You have to see this to believe it.), impaired driving, racism (The most embarrassing and shamefacedly tacky minstrel-take-off I've ever seen!), vandalism, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest and dangerous driving.

Notwithstanding, the movie is an instructive social exhibit of a time when, during the depth of the worst depression in history, these brutes marauded carelessly while the world burned around them. Never has a house staff been so clearly cast as in utter disgust of their employer's very existence.

Overall, a terrific example of its time. Fun, too, even if it's darn near too nasty to live.

When a man is found murdered after a night of carousing, a husband and wife set out to solve the crime in "Remember Last Night," a 1935 film directed by James Whale and starring Robert Young and Constance Cummings. They certainly did a lot of partying in the '30s, but the partying in this film is on a new level. Everyone is so drunk that the next morning, no one can remember a thing about what happened the night before and how one of their friends ended up dead.

"Remember Last Night" is along the lines of the Thin Man (with more booze, if you can believe it), "Fast and Loose," "Star of Midnight," etc. - the lighthearted man-woman crime-solving genre so popular in the '30s. What sets this one apart is the shameless drunkenness, which raises drinking to a new art form, and an appalling display of people wearing blackface masks and talking jive in one part of the movie.

Constance Cummings and Robert Young play the couple, and they're delightful. Cummings is beautiful, sophisticated, and sparkles as the wife. An accomplished stage actress who lived to be 95, Cummings appeared as Mary Tyrone to Olivier's James in an acclaimed "Long Day's Journey into Night" and in her seventies toured the country in "Wings," about a stroke victim. Here she is young and dazzling. Robert Young does very well in a role normally played by Robert Montgomery or William Powell - he's younger, and gives the part just the right playful touch. He lived to be 91, so maybe there was something in whatever passed for booze in the movie. Edward Arnold, Reginald Denny, and Arthur Treacher provide solid support.

This is a somewhat convoluted mystery - it was hard to follow even being sober, so just think what the characters went through. If you can get into the spirit of it (pardon the pun), it's fun, and as well, it's a great commentary on the times - and how they have changed.

1935's "Remember Last Night?" was James Whale's follow-up to "Bride of Frankenstein," adapted from a story called "Hangover Murders." The wonderful cast is led by Robert Young and Constance Cummings, playing Tony and Carlotta Milford, who spend their anniversary with friends on an elaborate drinking orgy that extends all across town. Morning finds them awakening in the home of Vic Huling (George Meeker), only to discover their host in his bed, not asleep but dead. Tony decides to call in his friend Danny Harrison (top billed Edward Arnold) to perform a quiet investigation without any police interference, since everyone involved are friends and no one can recall the events of last evening's debauchery. In his usual role as long-suffering retainer, Arthur Treacher gets to show his contempt for their wild drunkenness, stealing every scene with his priceless asides. Gustav von Seyffertitz ("Son of Frankenstein") provides an eerie sequence as a mesmerist who puts everyone into a hypnotic state to ferret out the killer, unsuccessfully. Frank Reicher plays the coroner, and E. E. Clive his photographer, begging for the corpse to be moved so he can get a clearer shot on the bed! For all Whale's comic swipes at the degradation of the 'idle rich,' his cast makes it difficult to actually dislike them; certainly both Robert Young and Constance Cummings can boast a chemistry that compares with William Powell and Myrna Loy. Young had debuted opposite Bela Lugosi in 1931's "The Black Camel," and later played Boris Karloff's son in "The Guilty Generation," while the exceptionally lovely Constance (forever making charming faces at her supportive husband) had played opposite Karloff in "The Criminal Code," "Behind the Mask," and "The Guilty Generation" (where she played Young's soon-to-be wife). Were it not for her dual roles opposite Harold Lloyd in 1932's "Movie Crazy" (she calls him 'trouble'), I would have to regard this film as her finest in Hollywood, which she would soon abandon for England, on the heels of her 1933 marriage to screenwriter Benn W. Levy, who not only contributed to this script but also two previous Whale features, "Waterloo Bridge" and "The Old Dark House." Interestingly, Levy's only credit as director, 1932's British "Lord Camber's Ladies," was also the only film that Alfred Hitchcock produced but did not direct.

An enjoyable stylized film directed by someone who really put his mark on his films (James Whale). There is even a satire on one of his films as Constance Cummings says to Robert Young, "I feel like the 'Bride Of Frankenstein' ". Edward Arnold was terrific as always. Robert Young never did a film where he wasn't good. Out of the 100 films he did he was always great. Young actors should study him and watch his films from the beginning of his career and watch his talents grow. Edward Brophy brought in the comedy relief and also never disappoints. Robert Armstrong as the 'Driver' has come down to be an underrated actor, was also great. Sally Eilers was also a great comic-dramatic actress. The other supporting actors including Reginald Denny, Arthur Treacher, Jack LaRue, Gregory Ratoff, Dewey Robinson, E.E. Clive were wonderful. We don't have these wonderful character actors today. They made each picture very special,including this one.