Midnight (Universal Cinema Classics) Reviews

• One of the BEST of the thirties-or any age

  
  By A167CL1OHIBCNR on 2000-07-26
  Directed by Mitchell Leisen(unjustly forgotten helmer of many wonderful "golden age" films-and former designer for DeMille),written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett at their wittiest, and starring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, Mary Astor and an incomparable John Barrymore-well, it's even better than it sounds. Beautifully polished and mounted production. Definitely a very adult "screwball" comedy with loads of innuendo, brilliantly played. I've seen this both on TV and in a theatre, and judging from audience reaction, every one of them loved it. This is one of those titles you can show to people who've usually little interest in "old" movies-and convert them!
  
  

• ROMANTIC COMEDY AT ITS BEST...

  
  By A1L43KWWR05PCS on 2001-10-21
  High stepping, leggy American chorus girl, Eve Peabody, played by the lovely Claudette Colbert at her zenith, lands in Paris of the nineteen thirties dead broke with only the gold lame evening gown on her back. She meets a handsome cabbie, played by the dashing Don Ameche, who is smitten with her. She disappears on him and ends up at a society fete, where she adopts the cabbie's surname and poses as a Hungarian baroness.

  There, she meets a wealthy couple, deliciously played by John Barrymore and Mary Astor. Ms. Astor has been smitten by a French playboy, played by the very handsome Francis Lederer, who appears to be smitten by the baroness. Barrymore knows that she is not a baroness, but keeps quiet. He treats her to a taste of luxury and then hires her to play the role she adopted, so as to make sure his wife's budding romance is nipped in the bud. As the baroness, she is to lure Lederer away from Astor, saving their marriage in the process.

  In the interim, our smitten cabbie has enlisted all the cabbies in Paris to help find Ms. Peabody. He manages to track her down at yet another society fete, where he arrives dressed in a tux and is announced as her husband, the baron. Meanwhile, the wealthy and handsome playboy has declared his intentions towards the baroness. Let the games begin! What will the baroness do? Will she remain with the "baron"? Will she marry the wealthy French playboy? Watch the film and find out.

  Look for lots of lively, fast paced dialogue. The performances are wonderful, and the dialogue is often witty. This is a reminder of the golden era of hollywood films. It is an absolutely delightful and zany romantic comedy.
  
  

• An unjustly neglected comic masterpiece

  
  By A16QODENBJVUI1 on 2003-03-16
  MIDNIGHT is the greatest classic Hollywood comedy that almost no one has seen. Why this isn't better known is a bit of a mystery. The film is well directed, well scripted, well acted, and well produced. The film is directed by Mitchell Leisen, who has been unjustly forgotten for the misfortune of having directed a series of extremely fine films based on screenplays by two writers who would later become famous directors in their own right: Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges. But Leisen put his own distinctive touch on the films he directed, and that is nowhere truer than this superb film. Nonetheless, the screenplay is superb, by one of the greatest writers of comedies in the history of cinema, Billy Wilder. Although he had been in Hollywood for a while, this was the first screenplay in which he truly hit his stride, the first in a series of stellar scripts (including NINOTCHKA for Lubitsch, ARISE MY LOVE and HOLD BACK THE DAWN for Leisen, and BALL OF FIRE for Howard Hawks) that led to his own shot at directing. Charles Brackett worked with Wilder as usual, Wilder functioning as the story originator and gagman, and Brackett cleaning up the Germanicisms cluttering Wilder's sentences. The cast is superb, with Claudette Colbert turning in one of her greatest performances as a young woman determined to capture a rich husband, but who instead inconveniently gets involved with a Parisian cab driver. Don Ameche was never better than in this film playing that Parisian cab driver. Mary Astor, who was extremely pregnant during filming, is her usual superb self, while the rest of the cast is littered with talented veteran character actors. The most bittersweet performance is the simultaneous hysterical and tragic performance by John Barrymore as a drunken dissipated nobleman. No question, the man turns in a funny, funny performance, but it is tragic because the appearance of drunkenness and dissipation was not the result of acting. Barrymore was suffering from advanced alcoholism during the filming, and was only a couple of years away from his premature death brought on by cirrhosis of the liver. The man once known as "The Great Profile" no longer was the extraordinarily handsome man he had been only five years earlier. He is funny, but it somehow seems unfitting that one of the great stage and screen actors of the 20th century should have ended his career as a bit of a buffoon.

  The screenplay is if a kind that we no longer see, and was the result of a huge influx of European talent in the 1930s escaping the political situation in Europe. So many great films directed by Lubitsch and Wilder and others put an enormously European twist to love and romance, and in no film is this more true than this one: an adventurous woman trying to scale the social ladder by snaring a man, a gigolo seducing another man's wife, the husband scheming to reclaim his wife with the help of the would-be adventurous, and meanwhile a poor cabbie trying to find the woman he loves. Delicious stuff, and it is a credit to Leisen and the largely non-European cast that they pull the whole thing off so believably. In this film, at least, he manages a European elegance and sophistication that would have done Lubitsch proud.
  
  

• Excellent Prime Vintage Comedy

  
  By A1L3JKXFHGJ9TS on 2003-01-20
  This is one of the most sophisticated and funny comedies I've seen in my whole life, thanks to one of the wittiest screenplays ever (by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, et al), deft direction by Mitchell Leisen, expertly paced, with a top cast, the best costumes, very elegant sets, etc.

  Claudette Colbert is wisecracking chorus girl Eve Peabody (later Baroness Czerny), stranded in Paris, who is befriended by taxi driver Tibor Czerny (played by Don Ameche, in one of his best roles) and ends rubbing elbows with the "smart-set", with unexpected results. For those who have watched Anatole Litvak's "Tovarich" (1937) on TCM, starring Colbert and Charles Boyer, it has a similar premise, but the other way round, because in the latter Colbert, a Russian Grand Duchess who belongs to that country's Royal Family, pretends to be a maid.

  The cast is full of excellent players: John Barrymore who impersonates with great skill, Monsieur Flammarion, a role somehow reminiscent of the one he played in "Twentieth Century" opposite Carole Lombard, but in a much "understated" manner. Mary Astor, as his unfaithful wife is rightly "stiff-upper-lip", high class and disdainful. Francis Lederer is very good as her lover, Jacques Picot, who falls under the spell of Colbert's charms. Rex O'Malley is Astor's wisecracking friend, Marcel Renard.

  This movie has definitely the trademark "Paramount Look" and the great settings recreate Paris very well. There are many very funny scenes, especially those at the soirée offered by pretentious socialité Hedda Hopper and the party that takes place at the Flammarion Residence in Versailles, where all the guests dance "La Conga". Unforgettable.
  
  

• What Happens To Cinderella After Midnight

  
  By A1345VRK5MYG7 on 2002-01-20
  Claudette Colbert is essentially Cinderella in this clever twist on the Cinderella storyline. She's a penniless, but resourceful American in Paris, who through a few twists of fate, ends up impersonating a Hungarian Baroness, joining the upper echelons of society in the process. Her fairy godmother is John Barrymore, who assists her in her charade to entice Francis Lederer, a playboy flirting with Mary Astor, Barrymore's wife. Don Ameche is the cab driver who has fallen in love with the real Claudette, and he wants her back. If it sounds complicated, it is, but in the hands of screenwriters Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, it makes perfect sense. The script is tightly and smoothly written, with terrific dialogue and screwball comedy mixed together. Wilder and Brackett take the Cinderella idea and make it something entirely different for adults. Colbert proves again in this film what a wonderful comedienne she was, giving a shrewd performance as the girl who charms everyone. She's given hilarious support by Barrymore, who enlivens every scene he's in, especially his phone conversation with Colbert and Ameche. The rest of the cast are terrific as well. Director Mitchell Leisen does his usual classy job in a film that reminds you just how smart and fun classic Hollywood comedies could be in the hands of people like Wilder, Colbert, Barrymore, and Leisen.
  
  
• Claudette, Greatest Movie Comedienne Ever, At Her Very Best
  By A315WMPERH1S0Z on 2002-12-08
  This movie is pure heaven!!! Claudette Colbert, the greatest romantic comedienne in movie history gives her finest perforamnce here. It's even better than her Oscar-winning IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. The movie is both utterly romantic and wickedly funny. Don Ameche is a wonderful leading man for Queen Colbert and John Barrymore is hilarious in easily his best film performance during his later "second lead" film career. The Billy Wilder script is just wonderful but thank Heaven Mitchell Leisen was the director!! Wilder unquestionably would have made a far more cynical film whereas Leisen keeps the romance and beauty flowing through. The clock will never strike midnight for this legendary comedy!!
  
  
• "Every Cinderella has a midnight"
  By A2887J6P8VPB5H on 2004-09-25
  This is a wonderful, hilarious, and sadly overlooked film. It's a shame it isn't out on DVD, but the VHS version I saw was very good quality. The picture was clear, the sound was never dead and the dialogue was easy to hear.
  
  This should be an essential for any fan of classic screwball comedies. I think the innocuous name, "Midnight," makes it easy to overlook and perhaps difficult to find.
  
  Colbert is obviously in her element here, as an unpretentious, down-on-her luck American in Hollywood's Paris who transforms into the "Baroness Czerny" and cons the Parisian elite. Don Ameche plays the Hungarian taxi driver (who sounds like he's from Pittsburgh) who pursues her. All of the characters are superb, and the script is one of the best. John Barrymore is hysterical as the kindly husband trying to win back his wife. The scene over the phone when he's imitating the baby is priceless.
  
  The screenplay to this movie can't be praised enough. It has the kind of social satire and romantic comedy that survives for generations. See this classic. You won't regret it.
  
  
• One of the funniest ever
  By A3SELPQRFQG2J4 on 2008-01-31
  Few comedies of the 1930's were better written and performed than "Midnight".
  
  One of Mitchell Leisen's best directed films - mainly because Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett fought Leisen and forced him to not cut out any dialog (which he often did).
  
  The premise; Claudette Colbert arrives in Paris by train with only an evening dress on her back. How she weasels her way from the bottom to the top is the plot.
  
  Also starring Don Ameche, John Barrymore (brilliant performance), Mary Astor, Francis Lederer, Hedda Hopper, Rex O'Malley, Monty Wooley, and Elaine Barrie....all very good.
  
  Amazing sets and costumes. Brilliant, snappy dialog. I don't know if this is farly classified as 'Screwball", but it's awfully funny.
  
  John Barrymore, in the twilight of his career, was quoted as congratulating Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett for writing "a screenplay with the quality of literary classic". Barrymore gives one of the very best performances of his sound-film career....on par with his brillant performance in 1934's 'Twentieth Century".
  
  Universal (who controls the pre-WWII Paramount catalog) has finally seen fit to put this one out on DVD. Also in the release (April 22, 2008) are three other brilliant must-haves;
  
  "The Major And The Minor" (Billy Wilder's debut US directorial effort, starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland),
  
  "Easy Living" (Jean Arthur, Ray Milland and Edward Arnold shine in this brilliant screwball comedy written by Preston Sturges and directed by Michell Leisen),
  
  "She Done Him Wrong" (Mae West and Cary Grant).
  
  All must-haves.
  
  
• Champagne comedy at its most bubbly!!
  By A2TOU0N8XE68W4 on 2002-04-01
  Where do I start in describing this wonderful film which has no peer as the best of the sophisticated comedies of the 30's. Quite simply it is funny, glowing with sophistication, brilliantly written with every attention to detail taken into account.
  Without a doubt it is the crowning glory of Claudette Colbert's film career and "Midnight" shows her at the peak of her ability and lovliness in a role superbly suited to her wonderful talents.
  There are so many memorable scenes in this film that it would be impossible to relate them to readers who haven't yet had the pleasure of viewing this gem. The scene of scenes is, I believe, the truly brilliant telephone conversation between John Barrymore (in a truly wonderful performance )and Don Ameche where he pretends to be Francy, Claudette's and Don Ameche's fictional daughter. It is an absolute riot and will have you convulsing with laughter like it does me time and time again. For that scene alone the video is worth purchasing! As complication piles upon complication the story just gets funnier.
  What a joyous marriage of talent and writing this film provides. The supporting cast is a marvellous asset here with Mary Astor as Barrymore's unfaithful wife a real stand out. She was a fascinating actress who I feel never got the real credit she deserved. Here se is brittle then bitchy and then comical in a terrific performance.
  The film also benefits from the fact of it being a product of the Golden era of Hollywood film making. What film company could possibly produce such a film as this now. Very few present day films "glow' as this one does and certainly there are no "stars' to compare with the likes of Colbert, Barrmore, Ameche, Astor. The expensive look and attention to detail evident in the film also helps tremendously with this tale set among the upper strata of Parisian society. Paramount did a wonderful job considering the whole film was done in Hollwood.
  An A+ time is guaranteed when you step into the champagne, weekend country house world of "Midnight" Enjoy!!
  
  
• The Gold Lame Of Erotic Splendor
  By A30TK6U7DNS82R on 2005-08-26
  When Don Ameche sees Claudette Colbert standing on a Paris streetcorner at night, in her one item of quality, that gold lame gown, his brakes screech and he can't take his eyes off his new fare. The gown, designed by Travis Banton in his last flurry of activity for Paramount, was Mitchell Leisen's idea-even in the lustrous black and white cinematography, its supple fabric, draped all over Colbert's showgirl body, shivers in the moonlight and actually looks gold, you could swear you saw a gold dress. She's Eve Peabody-as in, It Started With Eve-an American singer down on her luck, but one with a charming attitude and optimism, the kind that helped the US out of the Depression. She's rattling around Paris looking for her big break, or by now any kind of break at all. There's a certain weariness about herb stance, brave as it is, a bone-tired cynicism that is constantly warring with her genuine good cheer. Colbert's an amazing actress, or screen presence, and she can convey volumes of information with a single glance (and, as everyone had noticed), a single profile.
  
  Her Adam-or really her Prince Charming-is the Hungarian cabbie played by Don Ameche in a rare venture away from 20th Century Fox for the popular comedian. Ameche was a charming actor of indeterminate ethnic origin who was often asked to impersonate men from all over the globe. It didn't matter, Ameche could play it. He could even do all-American and thus was never seen as a threat to US hegemony. When he gets together with French-born Colbert, it's supposed to be a hands across the water thing. He's not French himself, but a refugee like so many pouring out of the East in those years, and Paris the laissez-faire city where individual freedoms are defended if only you have enough money and savoir-faire to afford them. Could MIDNIGHT have been made in a US setting? Possibly, but would many have warmed to a story of a French gold-digger out to marry a wealthy American?
  
  John Barrymore, Mary Astor and Francis Lederer provide sterling support. In some ways it's their surprise at all meeting up in the same movie; there's an effervescence about the casting alone that gives the film some of its champagne spritz. With Colbert and Ameche kept apart by one thing alone-their poverty-they've got sex attraction to burn and each seems to complete the other's deracinated loneliness. The glamour in MIDNIGHT is about nomadism, in the last gasp before the war, the last moment in which such a condition could seem attached to glamour.
  
  
• Wonderful comedy!
  By A2YOVFK64PL60K on 1999-05-30
  I caught this movie on a local PBS station one night and just loved it. Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche make a cute couple together, and snappy dialogue makes this movie just hum along. John Barrymore is wonderful in a supporting role. This movie is just about perfect, and worth the time to view it.
  
  
• Brilliant
  By A226HIHIVFUPLL on 2003-10-15
  Why isn't this movie better known? Why isn't it on DVD? It's a perfectly pitched romantic comedy, with a dream cast, witty script, terrific timing and one hilarious line or scene after another. It's got a sheen that holds up far better than many comedies of the same period, especially "It Happened One Night," which is very dated and almost lumpy in comparison. I can watch this again and again. It soars. It's movies like this that inspired me to write comic mysteries, though I know I'm no Billy Wilder.

  Lev Raphael, author of the Nick Hoffman mysteries
  
  

• A FUN FROLIC
  By A3BSS2M2DPPV4T on 2001-07-31
  Had this nifty little flick been released during any other year (Hollywood churned out an astonishing number of Grade "A" classic films in 1939) it surely would have won an award or two! One of the authentic delights from the thirties, Midnight's plot is delightfully amusing. Claudette is a showgirl somehow stranded in Paris bereft of everything but her wits (her guile and gold lame evening gown)...Zany complications abound and the players are in there milking the script for all it's worth. Barbara Stanwyck was originally deemed to play Eve Peabody, but she did Lorna in GOLDEN BOY instead. Mary Astor was quite noticeably pregnant during filming but she's cleverly "covered". The great Barrymore, due to is inability (refusal?) to memorize his lines (due to his boozing) read his lines off "idiot cards" held just off camera. Notice how Colbert's face is nearly ALWAYS photographed on her left side? That is a classic Hollywood "given". The socialite partygiver named Stephanie is played by the legendary poison pen Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper! Hopper was originally an actress who began playing in silents in the twenties (she and Barrymore had a fling back then). Mary Astor and Barrymore also had a passionate love affair in the twenties, but by this time Barrymore was a sickly, old man (for 57, due to his alcoholism) who sheepishly warned Astor that Elaine Barry was very jealous - Astor later wrote that there was no reminiscing on the set!
  
  
• Excellent little-known film!!
  By AAECAHBNP1VD2 on 2005-01-04
  It's enjoyable from beginning to end, with superb performances by Colbert, Ameche (one of his finest) and a slipping John Barrymore. WHERE'S THE DVD????
  
  
• dvd print very poor movie wonderful
  By A3LT2O1Q1A02HS on 2008-05-13
  Everyone agrees its a wonderful movie. I have an old print on VHS from 20 years ago and was thrilled about getting a DVD. Disappointed to say that print quality is about the same as my old VHS, very grainy and even blotchy in places.
  
  
• Claudette Colbert at Her Very Best
  By on 1999-06-29
  This is one of the greatest romantic comedies of alltime with beautiful Claudette Colbert at her funniest and most enchanting, once again proving she has no peer as a romantic comedy heroine.
  
  
• Zany, wonderful comedy!
  By on 1999-08-04
  This is one of my favorite classics. Claudette Colbert is excellent, and Don Ameche is beyond charming. The supporting cast is equally as entertaining! It was completely hilarious and heartwarming all at once...a must-see!
  
  
• The Cinderella Tale with a Twist
  By A2UR5PTCJN5AD8 on 2000-02-15
  Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche are truly electric in this effervescent romantic comedy. Colbert perfectly portrays the sweet and zany heroine while Ameche holds his own as the dashing but goofy hero. Fans of John Barrymore will love this film which is the perfect vehicle for his classic idiosyncrasies. Great screenplay, actors, and directing make this an absolute must-buy.
  
  
• If Only Life Was Like A Movie
  By on 2002-08-10
  Wit and sophisticated humor is lost from modern movies but it abounds here with double entendres and quips galore. Claudette Colbert is at her very best as is Don Ameche, Mary Astor and Joyn Barrymore. Billy Wilder was one of the writers and his touches are obvious. Nothing is more fun than to see a poor girl run circles around the rich while being supplied with the clothes, jewels, and Hispano Suiza to do it with by someone else's husband.
  
  
• A great romantic comedy - one of Ameche's finest moments!
  By A3CN9CCJUNIPKT on 2003-07-21
  Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche costar in this charming comedy... She's a down-and-out singer who's come to Paris by train, riding on her last dime; he's the irrepressibly flirtatious local cabbie who tries to charm his way into her life, and who searches all across the city she she gives him the slip. Colbert's as cute as ever, but this film is a real treat for folks who haven't seen much of Ameche: forget about those lame Sonia Henje films; this is Ameche at his best.
  
  
• One of the littlest-known great movies
  By A2ASR649JS6EYP on 2007-09-14
  How sad is it that this isn't available on DVD? I have a long shelf of romantic comedies--my man godfrey, easy living, holiday, the apartment, I love you again, angel on my shoulder, palm beach story and plenty of contemporary movies--but if I could keep only one it would be Midnight. Don Ameche may have gotten his greatest accolades in Heaven can wait, but I liked him much better here where he shows some fire and eccentricity. Claudette Colbert is resourceful, and charming as always. Opposites attract, misunderstandings arise, and two very attractive leads find themselves inexorably drawn together. I hope that my VHS copy doesn't fail, because I want always to be able to watch this movie when I'm in need of some hope and delight.
  
  
• The Greatest Screwball Comedy Ever!!
  By A363HA1C36OWJK on 2008-01-28
  Scripted by Billy Wilder and Direceted by Mitchel Leisen - this is the best Screwball Comedy ever banned on film. I love this movie and so do the critics and the audience. I am delighted that this film is going to be released on DVD - it has been long overdue!!
  
  
• An unjustly neglected comic masterpiece
  By A16QODENBJVUI1 on 2008-02-03
  MIDNIGHT is the greatest classic Hollywood comedy that almost no one has seen. Why this isn't better known is a bit of a mystery. The film is well directed, well scripted, well acted, and well produced. The film is directed by Mitchell Leisen, who has been unjustly forgotten for the misfortune of having directed a series of extremely fine films based on screenplays by two writers who would later become famous directors in their own right: Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges. But Leisen put his own distinctive touch on the films he directed, and that is nowhere truer than this superb film.
  
  Nonetheless, the screenplay is superb, by one of the greatest writers of comedies in the history of cinema, Billy Wilder. Although he had been in Hollywood for a while, this was the first screenplay in which he truly hit his stride, the first in a series of stellar scripts (including NINOTCHKA for Lubitsch, ARISE MY LOVE and HOLD BACK THE DAWN for Leisen, and BALL OF FIRE for Howard Hawks) that led to his own shot at directing. Charles Brackett worked with Wilder as usual, Wilder functioning as the story originator and gagman, and Brackett cleaning up the Germanicisms cluttering Wilder's sentences. The cast is superb, with Claudette Colbert turning in one of her greatest performances as a young woman determined to capture a rich husband, but who instead inconveniently gets involved with a Parisian cab driver. Don Ameche was never better than in this film playing that Parisian cab driver. Mary Astor, who was extremely pregnant during filming, is her usual superb self, while the rest of the cast is littered with talented veteran character actors. The most bittersweet performance is the simultaneous hysterical and tragic performance by John Barrymore as a drunken dissipated nobleman. No question, the man turns in a funny, funny performance, but it is tragic because the appearance of drunkenness and dissipation was not the result of acting. Barrymore was suffering from advanced alcoholism during the filming, and was only a couple of years away from his premature death brought on by cirrhosis of the liver. The man once known as "The Great Profile" no longer was the extraordinarily handsome man he had been only five years earlier. He is funny, but it somehow seems unfitting that one of the great stage and screen actors of the 20th century should have ended his career as a bit of a buffoon.
  
  The screenplay is if a kind that we no longer see, and was the result of a huge influx of European talent in the 1930s escaping the political situation in Europe. So many great films directed by Lubitsch and Wilder and others put an enormously European twist to love and romance, and in no film is this more true than this one: an adventurous woman trying to scale the social ladder by snaring a man, a gigolo seducing another man's wife, the husband scheming to reclaim his wife with the help of the would-be adventurous, and meanwhile a poor cabbie trying to find the woman he loves. Delicious stuff, and it is a credit to Leisen and the largely non-European cast that they pull the whole thing off so believably. In this film, at least, he manages a European elegance and sophistication that would have done Lubitsch proud.
  
  This film is being co-released with two other films, all of them interestingly linked, MIDNIGHT and EASY LIVING. Billy Wilder wrote the screenplay for MIDNIGHT and directed and wrote THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR. Preston Sturges wrote EASY LIVING and in 1940 would direct his first film, THE GREAT MCGINTY. Mitchell Leisen directed both MIDNIGHT and EASY LIVING. During the late 1930s Leisen directed a string of great comedies, but almost all of them had been written by either Sturges or Wilder. While THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR and MIDNIGHT represented the start of major directorial careers for Wilder and Sturges, the sudden lack of quality scripts signaled the end of Mitchell Leisen career as a great director.
  
  
• A Terrific Film - On DVD At Last!
  By A3IWPZXY27VK8I on 2008-04-15
  At last I can ditch my grainy DVD copy of a VHS recording off of AMC! (How's that for a batch of acronyms?) I've never understood why this film got lost in the shuffle of "Hollywood's Greatest Year." Thanks to the brilliant work of all involved, this is one of those rare films that can be enjoyed endlessly - I've actually watched it twice in one sitting.
  
  Grab this gem -- you won't be sorry, especially at this great price!
  
  
• Could You Really Top This?
  By AV2UMS38TIILZ on 2008-05-02
  Prefectly casted and hilariously funny, "Midnight" is a movie that will either have you curiously engaged or hysterically laughing the whole way through.
  The story begins with an American woman getting of a train in Paris with nothing but the gold evening gown on her back, a matching clutch bag, and no protection from the rain that pours down around her. She has no money, no other clothes, no job and no friends.
  She recieves kindness from a rather good looking cabby, who she says she will pay him double the cost of the venture if he takes her around town to look for night club jobs. The search ends fruitlessly, and she gives up in dispair. She says that they ought to part ways even though she has racked a horrible bill. He by now has taken a liking to her. And after buying her a cheap spageti dinner, says that she will spend night at his apartment because he is going to be out all night working any way. Knowing that she is falling in love with him,she runs out on him when his back is turned filling the cab with gas.
  The plot takes its twists and turns, while she gets paid to pretend to be a baroness with fancey clothes, a nice apartment, and plenty of spending cash. He, all the while, in his avid pusuit of her gathers his cabby buddies to find out where she ran off to.
  The storey ends in a hilariously rewarding manner. But don't think that I am going to ruin it for you!
  Despight it's lackluster title, "Midnight" is a movie worth watching even for those who aren't fond of the old classics.
  And I have to say, as good as it was, "Midnight" definantly outshines the great Frank Capra classic, "It Happend One Night.
  
  
• The greatest screwball comedy!
  By A29UCBTVDCS6T6 on 2008-05-15
  Brilliant casting and performances in a perfect example of a lost art - the screwball comedy. All the actors shine, but especially John Barrymore, who reminds us that he was a master of comedic timing and delivery. As usual, Claudette Colbert is wonderful. Current filmmakers could learn a lot from this perfect movie.
  
  
• Lost Glass Slipper, Reward for Return
  By A1GHUN5HXMHZ89 on 2004-07-31
  Thank goodness for Turner Classic Movies. I watched this movie on TCM this morning. I was thoroughly entertained by this classy romantic comedy. Made in 1939 along with "Gone with the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz", it shows a peek of the clothes, cars, homes, lifestyle, and more from that period. Wonderful cast even down to the Judge played by Monty Wooley. Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, Mary Astor, and John Barrymore give great performances and are well complimented by the rest the cast. If you enjoy classic comedies like "The Man Who Came to Dinner" and "It Happened One Night" you will certainly enjoy this one. A fun romantic comedy that is easy to relax and enjoy with the family.
  
  When Colbert decides a Parisian taxi driver played by Ameche is the right type for her but doesn't have enough money, she sets her sights on a wealthy suitor. When it turns out he is married but actually wants her to see someone seeing his wife, the fun really begins. She pretends to be a Countess from Hungary and when Ameche shows up as her husband, she really has to work to carry off her charade. This had to be racy for the time it was made. It is full of life and lovingly made. The cast really seem to be having fun with their roles because you see some hamming from time to time.
  
  I can't get this on VHS or DVD unfortunately. I certainly hope the studios realize how these wonderful classics can still be appreciated if they would just get them out on DVD. Be sure to stop by turnerclassicmovies.com/dvddecision and vote for five classic movies you want to see come out on DVD.
  
  
• Why the Wait?
  By AVA55ARON2D6I on 2007-05-21
  This is another example of an outstanding film not being available on DVD.
  What's up with that?
  
  
• DVD - Claudette Colbert & Don Ameche in Midnight
  By AB1CADJACE9R0 on 2008-05-17
  "Midnight" is a typical "30's" movie. Some were good, some great, and some not so good.
  I saw a lot of movies then as my uncle was a projectionist at the theaters here. I often watched from the projection booth, or if it was'nt too busy the loge. Of course on Saturdays a lot of the kids went to the Saturday matinee, for 10 cents. I do not remember missing many of those. I do not recall seeing "Midnight,"
  probably because there were 3 theaters in town and I missed a few. This movie was made when I was 7 years old. I really enjoyed "Midnight" as it was funny and entertaining, and a lot of the photography in a lot of old black and white movies was very well done. Claudette Colbert was always one of my favorites, not only because she was a great actress, but because she and my mother resembled one another.
  
  
• midnight
  By A3SK5Z43MUJASP on 2008-07-10
  We plan on watching for the third time, a fantastic good old fashion comedy. Wish we could educate our present society to learn how to enjoy a movie without using a bunch of cuss word.
  
  

• Easy Living (Universal Cinema Classics)
• The Major and the Minor (Universal Cinema Classics)
• She Done Him Wrong (Universal Cinema Classics)
• Dangerous Crossing (Fox Film Noir)
• TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female)