Rating: NR
Genre:
Romance
Release Date: 04/22/2008
SubTitles: French
Dubbed: English
Sound: DDM2.0
Run Time: 95 Minutes
Flags: Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: Universal Studios
Paramount's
screwball comedy Midnight is the first collaboration between director
Mitchell Leisen and screenwriting duo
Charles Brackett and
Billy Wilder. The film merges
Brackett and
Wilder's early emphasis on repartee and masquerade with ex-costume designer
Leisen's flair for high style and sophistication. American
Eve Peabody (
Claudette Colbert), a wily ex-showgirl, must impersonate Hungarian royalty in order to infiltrate the Parisian jet set.
Midnight begins during a midnight rainstorm as
Eve arrives penniless at Paris' Gare de L'Est, owning only the gold lamé gown on her back. She attracts the attention of Hungarian cab driver,
Tibor Czerny (
Don Ameche), but walks out on their budding romance;
Eve will no longer make the mistake of dating for love rather than money. Instead, she finds shelter from the downpour by crashing a socialite's late-night soirée using a pawnticket and a pseudonym,
the Baroness Czerny (the cab driver's surname). There,
Eve meets aristocrat
Georges Flammarion (
John Barrymore), who entices her with a place in society if she agrees to remain disguised as
the Baroness and seduce his wife's playboy lover. Meanwhile,
Tibor Czerny has not given up his search for
Eve. When he locates her whereabouts and discovers the fact that she is using his name,
Tibor also travels to the
Flammarion estate -- to win back
Eve, and to pose as her husband,
the Baron. What ensues is quintessential
screwball comedy, full of deception, love, quadruple entendre, and outright farce.
Midnight remains
Leisen's most heralded directorial effort, as well as one of
Brackett and
Wilder's earliest successes.
~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide
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