Wow! Such a good movie.

Memorable, crazy movie

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I remember when first seeing this film, being pleasantly surprised at the expertise of Ms. Young. Not many realize her long career began at the close of the silent film era (she was about 13), and that her talent was respected in the film industry. Like a lot of later generation viewers, I had the image of her TV program in mind, through reruns. That makes some of her older movies an especial treat. Like a lot of good actresses, she decried being used for a string of weak projects, and this one was an improvement over many of the previous phoned-in type roles. And, like many others also, she came into a better field of work after her contract expired and she began freelancing. I thought she and Aherne did a good job together in this venue, popular at the time.

Night to Remember, A (1942) *** (out of 4)Pretty entertaining mystery/comedy has a wife (Loretta Young) renting a basement apartment so that her mystery writing husband (Brian Aherne) can get some inspirations. They gets a lot more than that when they discover a dead body in their back yard and the husband is the main suspect. This film has a lot of people ranking it as one of the best of the genre but I think that's a tad bit too much praise for it even though it's still a pretty good little movie. The film starts off on a quick pace but I found the screenplay started to drag as it went along and one could also say the film is the tale of two halves as the first part tries to do comedy with the second focusing more on the actual mystery. The two really don't mix well together because the comedy in the first half is so over the top that you really don't pay too much attention to solving the mystery and then when that becomes the main focus, you have to ask yourself what was up with the type of comedy they were going after. Just take a look at the scenes following the body being discovered. We get both Young and Aherne fainting because they think the other is the dead person. Fine, it gets a laugh but it's also so over the top that you're really not building any mystery up nor do you care. How many "old dark house" movies has someone laid a candle down only to have it move? Well here we get that again but a pretty fun reason for it moving. With that type of laugh it's hard to get the "drama" to work a split second later. I personally think the two genres can mix quite well, just look at HOLD THAT GHOST, but it doesn't work well here. Both Young and Aherne turn in good performance but I think you can look at them and see that they're trying to force several of the jokes. The supporting players include the then Charlie Chan himself Sidney Toler, Lee Patrick and Gale Sondergaard. Fans of the genre or the cast will certainly want to check this out but it's not nearly as good as some would have you believe.

Loretta Young and Brian Aherne have "A Night to Remember" in this 1943 film about a couple that moves into a Greenwich Village apartment which turns out to be full of murder and mayhem. It sports an interesting supporting cast, including Sidney Toler of "Charlie Chan" fame, Lee Patrick, Gale Sondergaard, and Jeff Donnell.First of all, much as I liked this film, I'll go on record as saying that I can't believe Loretta Young was so anxious to get out of 20th Century Fox if this is the best anyone could come up with for her. Columbia wasn't at the top of the heap anyway, and this seems like a throwaway even for them. It's very light fare.Young and Aherne play the Troys, who move into a basement apartment at 13 Gay Street in Greenwich Village. Besides the cast, this is the main reason I liked this film. I used to live a couple of blocks from Gay Street, and 12 Gay Street is where the sisters in "My Sister Eileen" lived. In the '50's and early '60's, #10 Gay Street was home to Alice Ghostley, and her husband Felice Orlandi. Neighbors on another floor were Bea Arthur & Gene Saks. Close friend Paul Lynde was across the street at 123 Waverly Place, and Kaye Ballard was close by on 5th Ave. They all just walked to work at the Bon Soir, when they played that room.Tired and hungry, the Troys go out to dinner. They run into a friend of Nancy Troy's, Virginia (Donnell) who acts strangely. When Nancy goes into a phone booth, she hears someone setting up a meeting in her apartment! Strange goings on indeed. And when they find a co-diner at the restaurant dead in their backyard, things become stranger yet."A Night to Remember" moves quickly enough, and it's delightful, but probably a little miscast. Someone a little wackier than the stunning Young might have a better choice for the wife. Aherne, a very good actor, isn't quite at home in this milieu either. "A Night to Remember" resembles "Footsteps in the Dark" with Errol Flynn. Aherne was a better actor, but Flynn had a lighter touch and more charm. Alas, I think Aherne spent a lot of time in Flynn's shadow.I still love the movie despite its problems. Vintage 1943 - nothing wrong with that.

I watch all sorts of movies. Some I watch because they transform, they are touchstones for building and affecting imagination. They help build a life, our primary enterprise.Other movies are watched because they contribute to the context: they establish the language used elsewhere. They aren't particularly transformative in themselves, but they provide a lucid understanding of the vocabulary we need for the greater work. The greater joy.Many of these "background" films for me are from the 30s. Its between the time that talkies were invented and the war changed everything, cemented by "Citizen Kane." It was a period where film didn't know what it was, where film narrative was a matter of experimentation, where amazing and strange things were attempted. I believe that you cannot be a lucid human unless you understand how you think, and that means you have to understand narrative dynamics, which means film (mostly), which means you need to wade through the 30s, with at least one focus on detective stories.If you get that far, you need to look at the afterglow as well, those films from the 40s that referenced the older experiments. While the US was at war, this is particularly strong.Here we have an afterglow film that is pretty bad watching. Its only interesting if you plug it into this lucidity project where it has a place.Like the older films, the narrative device is a writer of mystery stories puts himself and wife into a situation where he can write another. He, the writer becomes folded into the detective. A second device has to do with place: all the characters are inexplicably forced to live in the same apartment building. There's an "explanation" for this but there's no logic behind it. Its there, because the form demands it. What clues there are in the mystery come from sussing out other locations. Other reverberations: the cop here is the guy who pretends to be Chinese in the Chan series. Many of his moments are Chan moments. There's a banter borrowed from the Thin Man series. And because at this late date (three years after the death of the form it references) we can't possibly take this seriously, it is transformed into a comedy.Bad watching. Interesting for giving us fences for the paddock we play in.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.