the leading man is my tpye

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

i must have seen a different film!!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This movie was released in 1940. Therefore, within the first quarter hour, we all know how it will progress and how it will end. We all hope that it doesn't end that way, but we are all one hundred per cent certain that there is no way it could end any other way. Paramount is a big studio with a lot of money invested in this movie and we all know that the 1940 censor would not allow the movie to end any other way -- much as we would like that to happen in this particular case. We all hope a miracle will occur, but it doesn't happen. And that of course is a big failure, but we all know in our hearts that the 1940 Hollywood censor does not believe in miracles. A shame, I agree! If the movie was re-made today, it would end differently, but I guess there's no chance in the world that a remake would even be considered, let alone that it will happen.The acting in this doomed scenario is great. If some of the scenes don't bring tears to your eyes, then fine players like Fred MacMurray and Barnara Stanwyck have labored in vain. In fact all the cast has been well-chosen. The direction is smooth, the story believable (in fact too believable), production values are A-1, and the players magnificent. MacMurray never gave a better performance than this one, and Barbara Stanwyck is, as usual, right on top of the game. No-one else but Barbara could have played this role with such power and conviction. The support payers are all believable too. In fact, at least three or four of them are maybe just a mite too believable! You want to shake them and make them aware that love conquers all!

Now here's an offbeat Christmas classic which must be rediscovered. Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray are a pickpocket and district attorney who reluctantly fall in love over the holidays.It's so nice to see a film with so much warmth, humor, and good will. I know miserable families technically make for much more interesting stories, but I adored seeing the tenderness and strong bonds between MacMurray's character and his family, and the way it radiated onto Stanwyck's lady thief.Absolutely recommended by me, though with Stanwyck in the line up, I shouldn't have to tell you twice, right?

Four years before they were murder (in "Double Indemnity") and five years before she learned how to flip pancakes (in "Christmas in Connecticut"), Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck were dynamic in this Mitchell Leissen comedy/drama that will leave you merry but weary from crying. It's just before the holidays in New York City, and shoplifter Barbara Stanwyck is caught trying to hawk a bracelet she just stole from another jewelers. D.A. Fred MacMurray is raring to get out of town for the holidays, but must first prosecute her case. He is not happy, yet he won't be happy if he leaves her behind bars over Christmas. So what does he do? He takes her home with him, of course! It's not that simple, but MacMurray does agree to drop her off in Ohio to see her mother who is not welcoming at all. But being a "Hoosier" (from Indiana), MacMurray does agree to host her for the holidays along with his widowed mother (Beulah Bondi), spinster aunt (Elizabeth Patterson) and sweet farmhand (Sterling Holloway). They are more than happy to have her, sure a romance is brewing. For a small town girl gone wrong like Stanwyck, this is heaven. And slowly but surely, the two fall in love, even though she's sure to get jail time when they get back to Manhattan.One of three Christmas movies made by the wonderful Barbara Stanwyck ("Meet John Doe" is the other), "Remember the Night" is an almost forgotten gem which has been rediscovered by film connoisseurs and is now considered a classic (not just another old movie). At the heart of its story is the message of what Christmas really is about-giving of oneself, not just to family, but to strangers as well. Once MacMurray realizes this, he finds that the reward is magic. There are so many wonderful moments in this timeless film that the best way to learn about them isn't to read reviews, but to watch the film. This cynical world of ours may find films like this overly sentimental, but it is sentiment which keeps us sane over the holidays. For me, the highlight is MacMurray's family and Stanwyck singing "A Perfect Day", as well as some sweet scenes between Stanwyck and Patterson, and later Stanwyck and Bondi, the later almost bittersweet. Georgia Caine is darkly cold as Stanwyck's mother who takes great pains to remind Stanwyck (in front of MacMurray) what a rotten child she was. Leissen took great care to make the ending a bit more realistic than it could have been. The mixture of comedy and pathos makes for great viewing of one of the best emotional screenplays (by the brilliant Preston Sturges) ever put on celluloid.

Preston Sturges' movies have seldom interested me. A few he directed at the beginning of his career I did enjoy however. The Eddie Bracken films to me were ugly, obvious and completely unsubtle. When I realized that this film was scripted by him, only Mitchell Leisen's name induced me to see it through and was I ever happy I did. This is not a plot-driven nor a gimmick-driven movie at all but rather a character study and a beautiful one at that. MacMurray and Stanwyck made perfect sense her and the absence of humor in general was welcome and gentle. Nothing artificial stands in the way of this love story which casts a spell entirely of its own from beginning to end. I highly recommend it as a welcome antidote to those Chrastmas films good and bad that invade our screens every year.Curtis Stotlar