☆ ☆ ½
A
Night to Remember (1942) – R. Wallace
Dopey film that is a hybrid of two genres
from the thirties and early forties: the screwball comedy and the murder
mystery. If this sounds a bit like The Thin Man (1934), then you are not far
wrong – undoubtedly the team of William Powell and Myrna Loy were a model for
this film’s Brian Aherne and Loretta Young. Aherne is a mystery writer himself
(who also seems to like a drink, a la Powell) and Young is his wife who rents a
Greenwich Village basement apartment to provide him with more ambience for his
creative process. When a dead body turns
up in their garden, we are introduced to a number of suspects from the same
apartment building, all of whom seem to be sharing a secret – and perhaps a
guilty one! When Sidney Toler (the second
Charlie Chan) shows up as a police detective, you know we are in genre
territory. Unfortunately, despite
engaging performances from Aherne and Young, the whole thing feels a bit flat.
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