Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #520 in VHS
• Released on: 1995-09-12
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Customer Reviews

Stanwyck Shines in Touching Film
Barbara Stanwyck never looked more feminine or gave a more luminous performance than in this touching holiday classic directed by Mitchell Leisen. A fine screenplay from the great Preston Sturges and an excellent supporting cast bolster this sentimental film into a holiday staple you'll watch every Christmas.

Fred MacMurray is Assistant District Attorney John Sargent, charged with prosecuting pretty shoplifter Lee Leander right before the holiday weekend. He uses her defense attorney to wangle a postponement so he can go home to his mom's farm just outside Wabash, Indiana for Christmas. Feeling guilty when Lee reacts badly to being locked up during the holidays, he has an old pal post bail for her.

He brings her to John's place, however, and once the suspicious Lee realizes John had no ulterior motives, Lee confesses she has no place to really go for the holidays. Startled to find her childhood home is just a few miles from Wabash, John decides he can drop her off and pick her up on his way back to New York for the trial.

Stanwyck and MacMurray were a great team, and there are some very fun moments as they keep getting lost on the backroads in Indiana, even getting arrested for trespassing at one point! But there is nothing funny about the reaction of Stanwyck's mother when she goes home after all those years, only to find bitterness and rejection. John decides to take her home for the holidays and they slowly begin to fall in love.

John's family is warm and welcoming, only his mother (Beulah Bondi) aware of Lee's situation. Elizabeth Patterson is wonderful as John's aunt, taking an immediate shine to Lee and helping her get in John's heart. It is the family Lee never had, the one thing that might have made the difference in her life. It is warm and moving when John's mother and aunt make sure Lee is represented as well when they open presents on Christmas morning.

Sterling Holloway is marvelous as their farmhand Willie, who along with the rest of John's family gives Lee all the love she never had. The season passes all to quickly and after the New Year's dance it is clear John loves Lee and she loves him. Stanwyck, often unfairly described as less than beautiful by critics, has never been so much so in the tender bedroom scene with John's mother, who knows he may just love her enough to ruin his career when they return.

John confesses his love for Lee at Niagra Falls and though she knows she shouldn't, she loves him also. She won't run, however, and when John starts to question her about the theft during her trial, she slowly realizes what he is doing for her. She makes a gesture of love also, and in a memorable ending their future is decided.

This is a warm and wonderful film, sentimental and moving. There are fine performances from everyone and a truly memorable one from Barbara Stanwyck. A film you don't want to miss. You will always remember the night.

Not Even Snowflake Can Ruin This Movie
I loved this movie. That's a hard statement for a black man to make about any movie in which Snowflake has a role. Regrettably, Hollywood had few roles for blacks in the 30s and 40s and the roles it had were generally comic relief and blacks played characters typically happy, subservient and dumb. Snowflake is Fred McMurray's butler and made a few early scenes in the movie very dated. ("He's not too bright, but he makes a great sandwich"). Nevertheless, the movie has a great script and gradually builds where the viewer roots for the improbable pairing to work out. I'm surprised that I've never seen this movie on cable around Christmas because it is truly a Holiday classic.

Sentimental Christmas treat for all to enjoy
"Remember The Night" is a Christmas regular in my home but really it's story could be viewed anytime of the year combining as it does equal portions of humour, family sentiment, goodwill to all men and great acting performances all nicely laced up with an important message about looking for the basic good in all people we encounter in our lives.

Produced in 1940 by Paramount Studios it was the first of two Christmas themed films that Barbara Stanwyck made in the 1940's (the other being the immortal "Christmas In Connecticut" in 1945), that have become holiday season regulars over the decades and live on in people's affections. I know the Christmas season would not be complete without these two wonderful classics as part of our Christmas viewing. Directed by the gifted Mitchell Leisen, a director who is not remembered half as much as he deserves to be, and boasting a superb screenplay by the legendary Preston Sturges, "Remember The Night" tells the spirited story of Lee Leander a street wise, fast talking shop lifter who is up on a charge for stealing from a jewelry store as the Christmas season approaches. The case is held over till the New year and rather than spend it in jail she finds herself being "rostered on" with the prosecuting attorney (Fred MacMurray )charged with convicting her till court resumes. What she gets is an unexpected invitation to spend the holidays with his family upstate where Lee gets her first real taste of a warm family life where people are nice to each other with no ulterior motives. Lee easily warms to the way of living she finds at MacMurray's farm and finds herself falling in love for the first time.

Out of such a vintage theme comes a wonderful film filled with the holiday spirit. Barbara Stanwyck, by this time a seasoned performer was never better than when she played bad girls from the wrong side of the tracks. Her Lee Leander character is at once cynical and sharp and alert to the best deal for herself and it's a credit to Stanwyck's wonderful sense of characterisation and understanding of what the part needs that she is able to turn her convited shoplifter into a warm and sympathetic character. Rarely has Barbara Stanwyck delivered a finer performance than here. She always teamed well with frequent co-star Fred MacMurray and the two would reteam in 4 years time for a most different film in the classic "Double Indemnity". Her scenes also with the gifted character actress Beulah Bondi who plays MacMurray's mother in the farm scenes are also noteworthy and are filled with beautiful exchanges between the two women. Stanwyck really reveals what a wonderfully sensitive actress she could be here and working against a famed sentimental scene stealer like Bondi was no small task. The cast is rounded out by Elizabeth Patterson playing Fred's aunt in loving style and the always interesting gravel voiced Sterling Holloway as the farm hand who has become part of the family. A particulary powerful scene is where Stanwyck confronts her own mother(Georgia Caine in a cold as ice performance) and attempts a reconciliation on the journey up to MacMurray's farm and is told to leave and never come back. Her reception is a stark contrast to the warmth and caring spirit she encounters on the farm. That scene alone is guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye, so painful it is to watch even after repeated screenings.

As an uplifting and indeed sentimental treat for the holiday season "Remember The Night" is unsurpassed. It will alternately have you laughing in scenes such as when Stanwyck describes herself by profession as a "bubble dancer" when she and MacMurray are arrested for sleeping in a farmer's paddock, to scenes that will wrench your heart as in the before mentioned scene Lee has with her mother. In short ideal holiday fare back from the days when Hollywood really knew how to create a wholesome story filled with love and feeling for others. Highly recommended.