Expected more

Did you people see the same film I saw?

A lot of fun.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Back in the Thirties every studio was making a film or three a year about an heiress and the guy she eventually would marry in the film. Probably the actresses most identified with playing heiresses were Carole Lombard and Myrna Loy. In Lucky Night Myrna Loy teamed for the one and only time with Robert Taylor where she is another madcap heiress that movies loved back in those Thirties.Probably the genre was overdone by the time Lucky Night came out because there certainly isn't anything original about it. It probably could have been put over a lot better had they done this at Paramount with Loy lent out over there to appear with Bing Crosby. With a couple of songs this film might have worked better because the part that Taylor has here, the footloose and fancy free charmer was something Crosby could do in his sleep.As it is Loy is bored with the stuffed shirts that she sees in her social set, none of them quite do it for her including the last one Joseph Allen. So she meets Robert Taylor sitting on a park bench and the two have a madcap evening and wind up the next day hung over and married. That doesn't please Loy's father Henry O'Neill a bit.It's when they try to make a go of it as an ordinary 9 to 5 average American couple that the film just bogs down. And it never really gets back on track by the time it ends.In the Citadel Film series book on The Films of Robert Taylor Lucky Night is described as the first of three dud films that Taylor made, the others being Lady Of The Tropics and Remember. It's not that Lucky Night was as bad as the other two, but it never does gel after the first third is over. It certainly created no demand to team Loy and Taylor again.

The second half of the movie is all about applying the frolic of the first half to the reality of day to day life...and well worth looking forward to, much less sitting through. Bill's "idea" is to seize every opportunity, much less day, and Cora's "practicality" is the deadening effect being reasonable at all costs can have. Henry O'Neill was a great find, and you'll notice him more often than you'd think once you've identified him: as Bill's worst enemy at the beginning of the movie, it is he, as Cora's dad, who brings not only the couple but the theme together by the end of the movie. Deeper than it appears, it is charming through and through

This comedy has about 15 minutes of charming banter between Myrna Loy and Robert Taylor. For a time, she displays some of the same light-hearted romping spirit that made her famous in the Thin Man movies. But the plot, which is silly to begin with (heiress decides to make it on her own, leaves wealthy home, meets a bum and they gamble and sweet talk their way into great fun), takes a somewhat dramatic ("is that all there is") turn in the end.Actually, for 1939, the script identifies a pretty mature marital conflict: she longs for security and he longs for the spontaneous, irresponsible thrills that made them fall in love in the first place. How do you compromise? Well, after raising the question, this movie sure doesn't tell us! It should have stuck to the levity and the lunacy. Still, if you're a fan of Taylor or Loy, it's worth 90 minutes of your time.

Lucky Night gets off to a roaring start, with Loy and Taylor tearing up the town and obviously having a ball together. There's great chemistry and the situations they get themselves into are a lot of fun to watch. For awhile I was really thinking this movie was going to turn out to be an underrated and little-known gem.Unfortunately, when the pair sober up the next morning, the story goes off the rails and becomes a dreary, incoherent mess. Taylor's character keeps rambling about how he has some "idea" about what life should be, but he can't articulate what he means. The dialogue actually becomes so bizarre at times that I wondered if the writer was all there.This one is worth checking out if you're a fan of Loy -- she's always a pleasure to watch -- but if you start to get antsy halfway through, change the channel. You won't be missing anything.