Remember the Night is a theatrical Christmas film starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, released by Paramount Pictures on January 19, 1940.
Synopsis
In the run up to Christmas, Lee Leander is arrested for stealing a diamond bracelet from a New York City jewelry store. The Assistant District Attorney, Jack Sargeant, is assigned to prosecute her. The trial begins just before Christmas, and rather than face a jury filled with the holiday spirit, Jack has it postponed on a technicality.
When Jack hears Lee complaining to her lawyer about spending Christmas in jail, he feels guilty and asks bondsman Fat Mike to post bail. He assumes that Jack wants to force Lee into an affair, and after freeing her he delivers her to Jack's flat. Discovering that she is a fellow Hoosier (native of Indiana), and that she has nowhere to spend Christmas, Jack offers to drop her off at her mother's house on his way to visit his own family.
On the drive, Jack gets lost in Pennsylvania and he and Lee spend the night parked in a field. The next morning, they are arrested by the landowner for trespassing and destruction of property, and taken to an unfriendly justice of the peace. Lee starts a fire in his wastebasket as a distraction, and she and Jack flees. Her mother, a malevolent embittered woman, has remarried, and does not want anything to do with her, whom she considers a lost cause.
Jack decides to take Lee home to spend Christmas with his family. She is warmly received by his cousin, Willie, Aunt Emma, and his mother, even after he reveals Lee's past. On New Year's Eve, he kisses Lee at a barn dance, and later that night his mother goes to Lee's bedroom for a talk. She reveals that the family was poor during his childhood, and that he worked hard to put himself through college. She asks Lee to give him up, rather than jeopardize his career, and she agrees.
On the way back to New York City via Canada (to bypass Pennsylvania), Jack tells Lee that he loves her, and tries to persuade her to jump bail, but she refuses. Back in New York City, he tries to lose her case by harsh and aggressive questioning, to get the jury to sympathize with her. His boss has been alerted to the affair, and secretly listens outside the courtroom. Realizing that Jack may damage his career, Lee changes her plea to guilty. As she is led away, he wants to marry her on the spot. She refuses, saying that if he still feels the same way when she has served her sentence, and he has had time to consider his decision, they can marry.
Cast
Actor/actress | Character(s) |
---|---|
Barbara Stanwyck | Lee Leander |
Fred MacMurray | Jack Sargent |
Beulah Bondi | Mrs. Sargent |
Elizabeth Patterson | Aunt Emma |
Willard Robertson | Francis O'Leary |
Sterling Holloway | Willie |
Charles Waldron | Judge in New York City |
Paul Guilfoyle | District Attorney |
Charlie Arnt | Tom |
John Wray | Hank |
Thomas Ross | Mr. Emory |
Snowflake | Rufus |
Tom Kennedy | Fat Mike |
Georgia Caine | Lee's Mother |
Virginia Brissac | Mrs. Emory |
Spencer Charters | Judge at Rummage Sale |
Uncredited actors | |
Jean Acker Avril Cameron Frank Conklin Harry Depp Julia Faye Galan Galt Beth Hartman Milton Kibbee Pat O'Malley Walter Soderling Bernard Suss Julius Tannen |
Jury Members |
Ambrose Barker | Customs Official |
John Beck | Lee's Stepfather |
Brooks Benedict | Courtroom Spectator |
Chester Clute | Jewelry Salesman |
Roy Crane Ruth Warren |
Unknown |
Edmund Elton | Minister |
James Flavin | Court Attendant |
George Guhl | Court Guard |
Fuzzy Knight | Bandleader at Barn Dance |
Lillian Lawrence | Townswoman at Rummage Sale |
Kate Lawson | Jail Matron |
Martha Mears | Nightclub Singer |
George Melford | Brian (Bailiff) |
Florence Wix | Judge's Wife |
External links
content from Wikipedia (view authors). |