Barbara's Christmas

Assistant District Attorney John "Jack" Sargent (Fred MacMurray) knows how to get convictions. He knows that putting an attractive woman on trial for shoplifting a few days before Christmas is going to result in a not guilty verdict. When presented with such a case just before the holidays, he maneuvers to postpone the trial until the new year. Jack is about to take a long-promised vacation to visit his mother and aunt on their farm in Indiana. Thus, he feels sorry for defendant Lee Leander (Barbara Stanwyck), as his actions will force her to be incarcerated over Christmas and he bails her out of jail. When Jack discovers that she is from a town near his home own, he offers to bring Lee to visit her mother.  Remember the Night (1940) is the story of their journey.

I discussed Remember the Night four years ago after seeing it in a theatre, so I was pleased when our Movie Group decided to view it for the holidays. This is a lovely film, blending comedy and drama expertly. With a script by Preston Sturges, and direction by Mitchell Leisen, the movie glides along at a brisk, but engaging pace. This was Mr. Sturges last film in which he only provided the script (thereafter, he would direct his own screenplays), and Mr. Leisen cut the script, much to Mr. Sturges' dismay. (AFI catalog) That being said, it is hard to believe that a longer film would have been half as affective, or that Mr. Sturges' original concept of Jack would have been any better than the one we have today.

In the first of his four films with Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray is sympathetic and engaging as a serious lawyer with a big heart. According to this TCM article, Mr. Sturges originally conceived Jack as "almost heroic". Mr. Leisen, however, felt the focus of the film should be shifted slightly away from Jack, and from the "certain articulate quality" that he felt would not compliment Mr. MacMurray's abilities. Mr. Leisen's vision of "gentle strength" is what remains in the film, and Mr. MacMurray is perfect as a man whose emotions and goodness conflict with this part of his job.

Barbara Stanwyck sparkles a Lee, a woman who has been diminished by her mother and her upbringing (more on that later). She escaped to New York City, and ended up a shoplifter, stealing high-end jewelry to support herself. We know that she has tried to work - she mentions a job as a song plugger (like Jack, she can play the piano, but she is a far better pianist than him). But with no real job skills, and no self-esteem, Lee has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. It would be easy to make Lee either rock-hard or pitiable. Stanwyck does neither; her Lee is genuine. She doesn't like what she has become, but she knows nothing else. When she learns there is another way of life, she embraces it.

The film does a beautiful job in comparing and contrasting the upbringing of Jack and Lee, primarily through the characterizations of their mothers. On the one hand, we have Lee's Mother, expertly played by Georgia Caine as a cruel and unaffectionate woman who has no desire to be a mother to her child. On the other, we have Beulah Bondi as Mrs. Sargent - warm, loving, and understanding of her son, and of Lee. The children, both raised in small towns in Indiana by widowed mothers, both relatively poor, have turned out so drastically different because of their mothers' attitudes. But the film does not present a hopeless view - there is a road to redemption through love.

Georgia Caine has one scene in the film, but she is unforgettable.  Ms. Caine, the child of actors, began her career with a Shakespeare troup. By 1899, she was on Broadway - she had appeared in 28 plays and musicals by 1935, and was at one point called "the queen of Broadway musical comedy". She began her film career in 1930; by the time she retired, she had appeared in 86 films, many of them uncredited. Thanks to her appearance in Remember the Night, she became a part of Preston Sturges stock company, appearing in a total of 8 of his movies, including Hail, the Conquering Hero (1944), where she was the mother of Eddie Bracken. She was married twice - her second marriage to Alphonzo Bell Hudson lasted for 30 years. Ms. Caine died in 1964, at the age of 87. (For more on her life and career, check out Accustomed to her Face: Thirty-five Character Actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood by Axel Nissen).

The film would reappear in a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast in March, 1940 with Mr. MacMurray and Ms. Stanwyck reprising their roles.  In July, 1951 another radio broadcast from the Screen Director's Playhouse starred William Holden and Nancy Gates as the leads.  In May of 1955, television, in an episdode of Lux Video Theatre featured Don Defore and Jan Sterling. And finally, in 1969, Ms. Stanwyck's own The Big Valley had an episode - "Judgement in Heaven" (Season 1, Episode 15) with a plot remarkably like Remember the Night.

The New York Times review by Frank S. Nugent was glowing - he stated that, though it was "a bit too early in the season to be talking of the best pictures of 1940 [the picture was released in January] it is not too early to say that Paramount's nomination is worth considering." (It received no nominations, unfortunately).  Mr. Nugent praised not only our two stars, but also, Ms. Caine, Ms. Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson (as Jack's Aunt Emma) and Willard Robertson (as Lee's attorney, Francis X. O'Leary). He said "In a cast of such unusual competence the difficulty is not in finding players worthy of special mention but in being able to keep the list within a single paragraph." 

If that doesn't convince you, we'll leave you with the trailer from this exceptional motion picture. Happy Holidays!