The Night Is Young

Against his wishes, an Austrian Archduke must pretend a lovely ballet girl is his mistress - but THE NIGHT IS YOUNG and anything might still happen...

Ramon Novarro had his last starring role at MGM in this forgotten - but surprisingly enjoyable - musical comedy. This time the Studio's chameleon star plays a Habsburg royal and he brings his usual sense of good fun & high spirits to the role - laughing & singing & charming the ladies. To its credit, the Studio gave him a sendoff with fine production values and a worthy supporting cast.

English songstress Evelyn Laye was to be Novarro's final (major film) leading lady. She is lovely & very talented & will remind some viewers of Jeanette MacDonald - except she's much easier to understand when warbling than Jeanette.

Wizened Edward Everett Horton is well cast as a pompous palace bureaucrat; it's quite a hoot to watch his facial expressions throughout. Pert & sassy, Una Merkel is fun as Miss Laye's girlfriend; laconic Charles Butterworth provides some chuckles as Merkel's solemn beau. Herman Bing is very enjoyable as Novarro's majordomo; and elderly Henry Stephenson adds a touch of grace & dignity to his small role as Emperor Franz Josef.

Movie mavens will recognize Elspeth Dudgeon as an old Duchess in the Royal Box at the Ballet; Christian Rub as a cafe waiter; and George Davis as a milkman - all uncredited.

The musical score by Oscar Hammerstein II & Sigmund Romberg is all pleasantly lilting, with the standout being the classic ‘When I Grow Too Old To Dream.'

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After doing very fine work in front of the Hollywood cameras for thirteen years, Ramon Novarro found himself in the unfortunate position of being the human flotsam swept up by two powerful tides.

First, there was the definite change in the public's taste for male movie stars. The Latin Lover was out -the rugged He-man (personified by Gable & Cooper) was very much the vogue. Sensitive Novarro, with his still strong Mexican accent, no longer fit in. Thus, THE NIGHT IS YOUNG can easily be seen as the last gasp of the Hollywood Latin Lover, with roots stretching back to Valentino.

Second, with the strengthening of the Hayes Office and the enforcement of the Production Code beginning in mid-1934, a powerful studio like MGM had to be very careful with its sexually nebulous stars. Already MGM had been involved in silencing little imbroglios Novarro had gotten into in the past. A big sex scandal now could be disastrous. Unwilling to hide behind a fake marriage (as a few other male stars were forced to do), Louis B. Mayer quietly reserved the right to not renew Novarro's contract when it expired in 1935.

Ten years previous, in the title role of the hugely popular BEN-HUR, Novarro had been one of MGM's brightest stars. Now, he was a has-been.

Novarro seems to have accepted the changes with typical good grace. Always wise with his finances, money was not going to be much of a problem. He did some film work at lesser studios, both in California & Mexico. He even went on the stage for awhile and lent his fine singing voice to light operetta. And eventually, as he aged, there was some television work.

Basically, though, Novarro had already slipped into obscurity by the mid-1950's, as can be seen by a rather cruel comment Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) makes about him in one of the Hollywood episodes of I Love Lucy. Novarro continued with the occasional acting job into the 1960's.

It would certainly be comforting if movie heroes all came to happy ends at last. Such culminations to long lives would be both poetic & tidy. Ramon Novarro, alas, would have no such Final Farewell.

At the end of October in 1968, Novarro made the incredibly bad mistake of allowing two young ruffians into his home. Over the course of a very long night, he was humiliated, beaten, tortured & murdered in the most grisly, ghastly manner. (The culprits were quickly caught.) Novarro was 69 years old.

And so ends the wonderful, horrible, exciting, terrifying saga of Ramon Novarro. It is too bad that for decades the most that people recalled about him, if at all, was the gruesome manner of his death. He should be remembered as a fine actor with much charm & vivacity, who acquitted himself well in both silent & talking motion pictures. If for no other reason than BEN-HUR, he will be assured his place in film history. Now that his old movies are slowly becoming more readily accessible, it may at last be possible to give Ramon Novarro the acknowledgment & respect he deserves.

Ramon Navarro was a real talent. I'd never heard of Ms. Laye and was stunned at her beauty which was fantastic. She was the most beautiful woman on the screen at that time in my opinion. Mr. Navarro must have been very gay to resist her.

It was very unusual in the Hollywood days of - boy meets girl (often proposing marriage immediately), which leads to their eventually living happily ever after, that such a happy/funny romantic movie ends in such sadness for the protagonists. I was moved.

I had never heard of this film until I saw it recently on Turner Classic Movies as part or a Ramon Novarro salute. What a charming story! It's quite similar to THE STUDENT PRINCE, but with different songs. "The Night Is Young" and "When I Grow Too Old To Dream" are the two standouts in the musical score, and they are delivered charmingly - several times - by Novarro and his leading lady, the beautiful Evelyn Laye.

Before viewing this film, I had just seen Jeannette MacDonald opposite Novarro in THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE. Next to the more famous American soprano, Miss Laye is a breath of fresh air - much less affected and more spontaneous in her acting, with an equally beautifully soprano voice. Perhaps because she is British, her enunciation is far superior to MacDonald's, and the voice is far less shrill in its upper register. Her chemistry with Novarro is wonderfully natural.

I don't mean to slight Ramon Novarro. He is, by turns, romantic, playful, wistful, and noble as the situation requires. He has a pleasant singing voice, and he acquits himself quite well in this bittersweet operetta.

When one adds in some of the excellent MGM supporting players - Una Merkel, Edward Everett Horton, Henry Stephenson, and Herman Bing - and a relatively thankless role for an as yet still supporting Rosalind Russell, it's a winning formula for passing close to an hour and a half.

The story is pure fluff, but what delightful fluff! I would really love to find this on DVD to add to my collection.

I decided to watch this movie on TCM only because I enjoy Una Merkel and had never seen Ramon Novarro in a "talkie". Other than that,I was expecting a soon-to-be-forgotten piece of fluff. Instead, I discovered a beautifully done film which combined music, romance, and comedy with a bittersweet dramatic ending.

As noted by others, Novarro was excellent, Merkel was delightful, and the supporting cast of Charles Butterworth, Edward Everett Horton, Herman Bing, and Henry Stephenson all gave strong performances. But, the accolades belong to Evelyn Laye as the woman who steals Novarro's heart. Like a few of the other reviewers, I, too, had never heard of Ms Laye although I have since learned that she was a big stage star in England before and after this movie. And, it's easy to see why. She was beautiful, charming,had a fine singing voice, and was a talented actress.

Similar in theme to Old Heidelberg, The Student Prince, and even Erich von Stroheim's The Wedding March, The Night Is Young has a charm of its own. It does not deserve to be forgotten.

Wistful, bittersweet operetta seemingly belonging to a time considerably earlier than 1935; it has elements of "Maytime," "The Student Prince," and, yes, "Bitter Sweet" in its plotting and sentimentality. (And leading lady Evelyn Laye, who is extraordinary, had in fact starred in "Bitter Sweet" on Broadway.) But Romberg and Hammerstein, whether au courant at the time or not, chose to write sincerely and with feeling, and MGM trotted out some good screenwriters and excellent production values to realize their vision. The result is an operetta familiar in its doomed-love-among-different-classes plotting, but integrated in a then-modern way, with characters subtly switching into song on the flimsiest of excuses. It's really charming, and Novarro, in his MGM farewell, is dashing and gentlemanly. Charles Butterworth, who had played this sort of part for Hammerstein on the stage in "Sweet Adeline," is a delightful underplaying buffoon, and his vis-a-vis, Una Merkel, gets more screen time than she was generally allowed. Rosalind Russell, as the well-bred woman Novarro must marry (like I said, it's very like "The Student Prince") isn't interesting at this point in her career, but Edward Everett Horton had by now perfected his fussy-major-domo characterization and does it to a T. Well directed by the nearly unknown Dudley Murphy, and lovely to look at.