Everything Happens at Night

Rival reporters compete for the love of a girl (Sonja Henie) and search for a Nobel Prize winner who's in hiding in "Everything Happens at Night," a 1939 film also starring Ray Milland and Robert Cummings.

The two men are hot on the trail of a Dr. Norden, a man supposed to be dead but actually alive in a small Swiss village hiding from various political factions who are after him. While there, they both meet pretty Louise, a young woman who's the caretaker for an old man. She also knows how to skate.

This is more of a dramatic turn for Henje. It only has one big number for the multiple Olympic gold winner. Today, Henje's skating may not look like much, but she was very musical, had great speed, excellent spins, and danced on her toes on ice like a ballerina. She was a dazzling entertainer.

The comedy is provided by Milland and Cummings, both of whom are very charming and funny. For some reason, a lot of people slam Cummings. He wasn't a compelling dramatic actor; his foray was comedy, which he did well.

Milland looks quite handsome and he flirts beautifully: "6'3, blue eyes, 28 years old" he murmurs in Henie's ear with that knockout accent - pretty sexy!

As for Henje, acting wasn't her thing; she was a specialty performer, and one keeps waiting for her to do her specialty. Instead, she spends a lot of time skiing up and down mountains.

I'm not even sure she skied - Otto Lang, who recently died at 98, donned a blond wig and skied for her in "Thin Ice," and in "It Happened in Sun Valley," her stand-in for skiing was a 14-year old boy. So someone kept busy, and it wasn't Sonja.

"Everything Happens at Night" isn't much of a movie. People expect a light, thin story from a Henje film since she'll be skating a lot. Well, the story is thin but it's a comedy that turns dramatic when the Nazis show up in the Swiss village looking for the doctor. I thought Switzerland was a neutral country - wouldn't this man be safe once he was there?

Sonja should have stuck to films like "Thin Ice," "One in a Million," and "Second Fiddle" which were more her speed. In short, not a great movie and not a great Sonja Henie movie.

The story is not even a paper thin one, it is ludicrous.

A famous scientist is killed by Gestapo, and in fact it was his secretary who had been, and there is no mention of his being look-alike, or even similar stature. But the whole world believed, including Gestapo, that it was he who was killed and the survivor to the shoot out was the secretary ! No one bothered to have a look at the survivor? It wasn't the iron curtain period, and even under the curtain, this type of replacement wasn't possible. For safety, the targets, if they are important, were provided body-double, by the state. But when the state itself was the gun wielder, that is simply ruled out.

This was one of the propaganda movies, sponsored by administration and executed by Hollywood, and followed the exact formula of those, ridiculously incompetent and stupid enemy, and virtuous 'countrymen'. This type of misrepresentations brings down the merit of movie, but on another angle, it was necessary to bring warm the blood of the people, before making it to boil. But once the period is over, these movies neither have any historical significance, and least of all artistic one.

Being a propaganda movie, it needed some additional attraction, and most of these, were from the 'imported' stars, who might have been more than ready to compromise, to get into good books. Sonja had been 'pawn'-ed on this angle, and unfortunately, except her name, her skills were not used. Though she didn't have wooden face like a few of the sport/ music celebrities used, but still she wasn't much of an actress. Her talent was the ice-routines, and in this movie, there was only one, and that too forced in. It was a dream sequence, but whereas in 'One in a Million' there was some context, here there were absolutely none, and that too, for a few minutes.

Both the leading men in her life were cads, to use it mildly, she knew and still fell and so much so, that she brought the enemy into the secret lair, where her father was kept hidden !

Well, with this infantile plot, Sonja without show-casing her talents (except a few minutes) it should go back to the can, once its purpose has ended (say December 1941).

I feel sorry for Sonja, but on the other angle, all the actor and actresses of those times were practically white slaves, only a handful could dare (even Bette Davis couldn't), and that too probably since their box-office values far more offset their 'rebellion'.

Like all of Sonja Henie's vehicles, this fun-filled 1939 Fox whimsy works like a cheery blend of comedy, romance, and ice skating dances. The main difference is that the plot is less focused on the skating scenes than the suspense and romance concerning Henie and her two leading men, Robert Cummings & Ray Milland.

I was surprised to see "Everything Happens at Night" has only one skating scene for Henie, quite an aberration considering that most of her movies are fraught with dances and skating. Cummings and Milland play two competing reporters that are sent to a small Swiss town to investigate a Nobel Prize winning commentator who is believed to be dead. Both find themselves falling for his daughter played by Henie. Cummings is a bit eccentric and rowdy while Milland comes off as a serious and straight-forward sort of fellow. They exchange roles courting her. Their scenes are irresistibly funny, charming, and merry. Then all of a sudden the movie becomes a spy thriller when a band of Gestapo villains arrive in the Swiss village to wreak havoc.

"Everything Happens at Night" is my fourth Henie after "Sun Valley Serenade"(1941), "One in a Million"(1936) and "My Lucky Star"(1938) and all rank as her very best.

Not much can be said for SONJA HENIE's attempt to show her boss Darryl F. Zanuck (whom she couldn't tolerate) that she was an actress as well as a first class skater.

Result: The dullest of all the Henie vehicles--and quite the opposite of another commentator who says "typical Sonja Henie fluff." Nothing could be farther from the truth. This is definitely not a typical Henie vehicle. It's merely a dull story of two reporters (RAY MILLAND and ROBERT CUMMINGS) who seek the truth regarding a Nobel Prize-winning author and who vie for the affections of his daughter. The humor is sparse and the incidents involving Nazis during World War II falls flat.

Sonja does get a chance to act--with less than satisfying results. Furthermore, she only gets a chance to skate once during the entire film.

Milland and Cummings are competent enough but the script is a dull affair and no one comes out of this one smelling like a rose, most of all the writers who concocted this far-fetched story.

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.