Lucky Night

This comedy has about 15 minutes of charming banter between Myrna Loy and Robert Taylor. For a time, she displays some of the same light-hearted romping spirit that made her famous in the Thin Man movies. But the plot, which is silly to begin with (heiress decides to make it on her own, leaves wealthy home, meets a bum and they gamble and sweet talk their way into great fun), takes a somewhat dramatic ("is that all there is") turn in the end.

Actually, for 1939, the script identifies a pretty mature marital conflict: she longs for security and he longs for the spontaneous, irresponsible thrills that made them fall in love in the first place. How do you compromise? Well, after raising the question, this movie sure doesn't tell us! It should have stuck to the levity and the lunacy. Still, if you're a fan of Taylor or Loy, it's worth 90 minutes of your time.

This movie presents some good ideas about the manner of living life. The characters ably portrayed the pulls and tugs of living safely versus serendipity. It also demonstrates a good working relationship between people in a marriage who are working together as a team. How often is honesty between people present in real life?

Cinematography, costumes, and sets rate at least a B if not higher, so I can not imagine the source of disapproval unless it is with the ideas presented. But of these things, even the millionaire steel company owner approved. Whether or not other reviewers saw these things, I can not tell.

The second half of the movie is all about applying the frolic of the first half to the reality of day to day life...and well worth looking forward to, much less sitting through. Bill's "idea" is to seize every opportunity, much less day, and Cora's "practicality" is the deadening effect being reasonable at all costs can have. Henry O'Neill was a great find, and you'll notice him more often than you'd think once you've identified him: as Bill's worst enemy at the beginning of the movie, it is he, as Cora's dad, who brings not only the couple but the theme together by the end of the movie. Deeper than it appears, it is charming through and through

Back in the Thirties every studio was making a film or three a year about an heiress and the guy she eventually would marry in the film. Probably the actresses most identified with playing heiresses were Carole Lombard and Myrna Loy. In Lucky Night Myrna Loy teamed for the one and only time with Robert Taylor where she is another madcap heiress that movies loved back in those Thirties.

Probably the genre was overdone by the time Lucky Night came out because there certainly isn't anything original about it. It probably could have been put over a lot better had they done this at Paramount with Loy lent out over there to appear with Bing Crosby. With a couple of songs this film might have worked better because the part that Taylor has here, the footloose and fancy free charmer was something Crosby could do in his sleep.

As it is Loy is bored with the stuffed shirts that she sees in her social set, none of them quite do it for her including the last one Joseph Allen. So she meets Robert Taylor sitting on a park bench and the two have a madcap evening and wind up the next day hung over and married. That doesn't please Loy's father Henry O'Neill a bit.

It's when they try to make a go of it as an ordinary 9 to 5 average American couple that the film just bogs down. And it never really gets back on track by the time it ends.

In the Citadel Film series book on The Films of Robert Taylor Lucky Night is described as the first of three dud films that Taylor made, the others being Lady Of The Tropics and Remember. It's not that Lucky Night was as bad as the other two, but it never does gel after the first third is over. It certainly created no demand to team Loy and Taylor again.

I first saw this movie on Turner classic movies, and really enjoyed it. It was a fun, flirty and wild (as wild as you could be in the movies of the 30's) story of two people who hit it off and had a crazy life together. Not a brain teaser of a movie, nor was it made to make you think or entertain your brain. In the course of this movie, the two love birds accidentally marry each other, get drunk, beg for a quarter, get rich, and buy a car - all in one night! For a girls' night, or a veg-out session, Myrna Loy is entertaining and fun in this film. Turner should play this more often as an option to the tired and repetitive movies they sometimes show. If you haven't seen this movie, give it a try!