Cette nuit ou jamais

Original title: Tonight or Never

1931
1h 20m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Romantic Comedy Screwball Comedy Comedy Romance

A young opera singer finds her career stalled because of her cold and passionless performances, until she finds romance with a handsome admirer.A young opera singer finds her career stalled because of her cold and passionless performances, until she finds romance with a handsome admirer.A young opera singer finds her career stalled because of her cold and passionless performances, until she finds romance with a handsome admirer.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.5/10

1.8K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 3 wins total

User reviews19

Featured review

6/10

Gloria Swanson in an early talkie

In Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson said, we had faces then.

Well she sure did! Those eyes! Her expressions! In Tonight or Never, she plays an opera diva lacking the one thing that will make her a superstar - feelings! Since it's 1931 you can interpret that as sexual fulfillment.

As a former opera singer myself, I got a kick out of the opening. It takes place in Venice, and we get to hear a soprano with a voice like Minnie Mouse sing the end of Tosca and go flat on the high note. I am forever stunned at what film considered a Tosca voice. I mean, Jeannette McDonald was another one.

Our diva here, Nella Vago, falls for Melvyn Douglas, in his debut, who is living with a former opera diva, supposedly his "aunt."

The film is talky, with lots of innuendo and a seduction scene that can only be described as old-fashioned. Which since it's 1931, it was.

Swanson's wardrobe is to die for. Douglas is very elegant.

We don't have much of the young Gloria in talkies. And, since it's Douglas' debut, and Boris Karloff isn't playing a monster, I recommend it.

blanche-2
Nov 22, 2024
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Storyline

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Trivia
The Hays Office strongly objected to the film after it was completed and demanded several extensive cuts. The sequence most objected to was the love scene between "Nella Vago" and "Jim Fletcher," about which Hays Office staff member Lamar Trotti commented, "This scene was one of the most offensive, if not the most offensive-in my recollection." Other scenes trimmed showed the character of Nella "writhing on a day-bed in a particularly offensive manner," and her being unable to sleep because of the honeymooners in the next room.

Goofs
(at around 13 mins) When Fletcher returns to Nella Vago's window with a flower, he stands in the middle of a circle of smoked cigarettes he previously had discarded. However, when he throws the flower up through the window of her room (which is a long shot), he is standing outside the circle of cigarettes.

Quotes
Marchesa Bianca San Giovanni: And that is just the trouble, it is nothing but an organ. It is as cold and as passionless as one of these American iceboxes. Let me tell you a secret; no woman can ever be a great artist without love, without passion, without a great inside flame in her heart. If she were really an artist, she would sing with more than her voice, she would sing with her heart and her soul and her body. I did!