Everything Happens at Night

Sonja Henie is always watchable and a marvel at ice skating, but 'Everything Happens at Night' is one of her weaker films along with 'One in a Million' and 'It's a Pleasure'.

What there is of the ice skating is dazzling and full of grace, flawlessly performed by Henie, but there isn't enough of it. 'Everything Happens at Night' is saved mainly by the funny and charming performances of Robert Cummings and particularly Ray Milland. The humour is sporadic, but is entertaining when it's there.

The production values are suitably elegant and beautifully captured by camera and the music complements very well indeed.

Henie however, despite dancing/skating flawlessly, shows limitations as an actress, a big problem for a role heavier in the drama department than the ice skating. Apart from some nice humour, the script is very limp, while the direction is stodgy and the story is as thin as ice, sometimes pedestrian and implausible.

Overall, watchable but a lesser film with Sonja Henie. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Two rival journalists in Switzerland search for a missing Nobel Peace Prize laureate - but instead discover a lovely young nurse who teaches them that EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT NIGHT.

Sonja Henie was Norway's ice queen when she won Olympic gold medals in 1928, 1932 & 1936. After going professional, she began a celebrated movie career at 20th Century Fox in 1936 with ONE IN A MILLION, which was her American film debut. Beautiful & talented, as well as being a natural in front of the cameras, she carved out her own special niche during Hollywood's Golden Age. Although Miss Henie's ice routines may look antiquated by comparison to modern champions, there was nothing antique about her dazzling smile or sparkling personality. In this regard, some of today's snowflake princesses could still learn a great deal from her.

As her career progressed, it became increasingly difficult for Fox to find decent stories for Miss Henie and the excuses for the lavish ice dancing numbers were often implausible. No matter. Audiences did not flock to her films to watch Sonja recite Shakespeare. The movies were meant to be pure escapist fantasy, plain & simple.

EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT NIGHT is no exception and its story is often quite silly. Also, unbelievably, Sonja is only given one skating sequence in the film. Incomprehensible omission! One has to wonder what the bosses at 20th Century Fox were thinking?

On the plus side, the movie must be credited as one of the first of Hollywood's films to depict the Gestapo as evil villains - a full two years before America's entry into the Second World War.

A couple of script inclusions may need a bit of elucidation. The BEN-HUR film which is suggested (and rejected) would be the silent 1925 MGM version starring Ramon Novarro; by 1939 it would be considered quite passé. Also, notice the sly reference to 'Ferdinand.' This would be an allusion to Ferdinand the Bull, the flower-sniffing hero of Munro Leaf's 1936 story (and made into an Academy Award winning cartoon by Walt Disney in 1938).

Ray Milland & Robert Cummings are very enjoyable as the ambitious reporters; viewers will be wondering which gentleman will walk away with Sonja at the fadeout - both are heroic, cunning and equally deserve her.

A smattering of familiar faces fill small roles (George Davis, Frank Reicher, Paul Porcasi, Christian Rub). Fritz Feld is especially humorous as an officious gendarme. Jody Gilbert steals a scene or two as an abundantly sturdy Swiss miss.

Ultimately, though, this is Sonja's show. She glides effortlessly into the viewer's heart, while balancing on a thin edge of silver, suspended over frozen water.

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.

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.

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.