Knit to This
Knit to This: Remember the Night
I glancingly referenced 1940’s Remember the Night two years ago, when I wouldn’t shut up about The Holly and the Ivy. If you’ve seen it before, you know it deserves more than just that casual mention, though, and if you haven’t seen it, well, consider this my gift to you and you can just thank me with perfumed letters and bags of delicious plump dried apricots (still the best stocking stuffer; fight me!) later.
For thirty minutes or so, Remember the Night is the 1940s-est movie imaginable, with a sexy, cynical lady jewel thief, a morally upright but also cynical district attorney, a guy named Fat Mike, and an admittedly problematic Black houseman named Rufus, and the first time I saw it, I was tempted to bail by the second time Rufus showed up.
But the moment Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray hit the road as part of the (also admittedly complicated and unlikely) Preston Sturges-devised plot wherein the lady and the gentleman who have no business together ultimately, um, do business together, your mood hits the road with them. By the time they’ve milked a cow, set the justice of the peace’s trash can on fire and made it to MacMurray’s childhood Indiana home, you’ve practically gone back in time, and all the cynicism of the first thirty minutes falls away and you just surrender to it completely.
I’ve now seen it many, many times, and I’ll tell you what: the long Christmas-centric Indiana sequence is suffused with such tenderness and beauty that it’s a wonder anyone ever tried to make a Christmas movie again. It’s like it exists in a snowglobe, and it’s crucial to how the movie works that it comes so close on the heels of a scene that visits Stanwyck’s childhood home, which is as dark a scene as any I’ve ever seen in a Christmas movie.
And because I can only make pop culture references that are at least 100 years old, I will loudly proclaim from my chesterfield that this thing is all Beulah Bondi’s show. I love her so much in this movie (as MacMurray’s mother) that I formed The Beulah Bondi Society, of which I am the president (unless any other members are reading this. If you say you’re in it, you just say you’re the president; that’s the rule). I think it’s easy to read Bondi’s character as a simple midwestern widow, but it’s a mistake. Watch the bedroom scene late in the movie, when Bondi’s Mrs. Sargent very gently communicates to Stanwyck’s Lee how the rest of the plot will play out. It’s a steely bit of writing, played as beautifully as anyone could ever do it.
It doesn’t quite work out the way Mrs. Sargent wants, though it also doesn’t work out quite the way the audience might want either. Good plotting sense and Hayes Office requirements combine to give us a not-quite happy ending (it’s arguable) that ends the movie with a little edge of “uh-oh … consequences.” Sorry, drunken Santas everywhere: it’s a melancholy one.
It’s a perfect movie for Christmas Eve, even if you have absolutely no plans to winch yourself into a corset and go to a barn dance. And if you do have plans to do that, well … bravo.
Remember the Night is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, though it moves around and pops up here and there.
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Thank you for this, DJ. I’ll spin it up tonight. A melancholy ending is fine. My son will be home, cleaning up after the devastating storm in Maine, his gifts here and not floating down the Kennebec. Feeling grateful he is safe and melancholy too. Perfect post for me!
May you have a snug, warm and safe December celebration!
The best Christmas movie, hands down! When Sterling Holloway sings, I tear up. So sign me up for the fan club!!
No, I am the president of the Beulah Bondi society. Penny Serenade is currently showing on Watch TCM if you need an additional fix.
But I am incapable of rewatching the tragic Make Way For Tomorrow.
Oh, I love Make Way for Tomorrow too!
Thank you for the memories this morning. I don’t believe anyone can steal a movie from Barbara Stanwyck, though, or Fred MacMurray either. And Preston Sturges can have my attention any time. And as usual, your writing is the best part of my day.
Very interesting story summary
I am tempted to watch it.
Where do you find these things.
Beulah Bondi! I thought I was the only person who knew that name from my friend’s movie magazines. Yes it was long ago!
I am not DG Strong but I find movies like this one … including this one … on Turner Classic Movies. The BEST channel in the history of channels.
I too am President of the Beulah Bondi fan club, and this is my favorite Christmas movie. Tied with Christmas in Connecticut, another Stanwyck with a very different vibe. Dennis Morgan (swoon) …l
Amazing appreciation of a gem (and others you find) that is from a generation of my mom who passed this year. Your posts send me on paths that I can no longer discuss with her, and couldn’t prior, since I didn’t know they existed. So added melancholy – or whatever this feeling may be. Thank you for additional ways to connect to days of trumpet vines, picket fences, laundry and coal sheds, and the long walks to school over the fields in knee deep snow with her brothers since the old bus only went to town once or twice a week. And Flickerbub was a real panhandler who would stop in the road and sell you pots and pans off the bed of his truck since there was no other way to shop for household goods. Merry Christmas Eve.
One of my top ten Christmas movies! We discovered it years ago by accident. Loved it. Especially that he goes home to Wabash, Indiana, my hometown!
I always say that I won’t watch the end because, well no spoilers but you are rooting for this couple!
One of my top ten Christmas movies! We discovered it years ago by accident. Loved it. Especially that he goes home to Wabash, Indiana, my hometown!
I always say that I won’t watch the end because, well no spoilers but you are rooting for this couple!
Oh and there is a courtroom scene with Barbara Stanwyk when she doesn’t say a word but you can see everything she is thinking go over her face. Amazing!
Two favorite Barbara Stanwyck Christmas movies—this one and, of course, Christmas in Connecticut
Sorry, I’m the president of The Beulah Bondi Society. And also a card-carrying member of The Ward Bond fan club. They don’t make “character” actors like this anymore. Makes you think about how a supporting role may be even better than having the starring role! (Good words of life advice, too!)
Yes to “Make Way for Tomorrow” and another Beulah Bondi Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
DG. You are the Christmas gift that keeps on giving throughout the year. It’s utterly impossible to read your posts without coming away intrigued and feeling like immediately pursuing your suggestions. Now I have a fun plan for what to knit to over the Christmas break!
It’s available on Hulu and Plex.
Barbara Stanwyck in anything with Christmas in it has to be good. I’ll be watching Christmas in Conneticutt and will be on the lookout for this one. I am also a member of the BB society.
Beulah Bondi! One of the great character actors you see so often in ‘old’ movies.
My husband maybe the President of his own Barbara Stanwyck movie club (not Big Valley). Especially pre-code movies.
Thanks for the review and where can we nominate you to be a TCM talking head??
Hey DJ, the best dried apricots I’ve ever had come from nuts.com, the ones they call Half-Dried Apricots. OMG, so good.
I’ll have to find it – I still think the best Christmas movie is the one with Jimmy Stewart who runs his father’s savings and loan and uses his own insurance money out to the people that he loaned money to and the Christmas angel that’s trying to earn his wings and the woman I can’t remember her name right now either – I’ll remember the title after I send this comment!?!
It’s a Wonderful Life. With Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.
I thought I was the president of the Beulah Bondi society!! Her speech in A Sumer Place…magnificent. Never a bad performance.
Totally agree with you! Saw this movie for the first time a couple of weeks ago on TCM. The ending scene that you referred to was one of the most touching and well executed/balanced I’ve seen. Blending as it did a mother’s love and concern for her son with her woman’s understanding about the love the couple has each for the other.
But not a word about Sterling Holloway. SMH.
YOU can be president of HIS club!
And at some point we need to talk about Edward Everett Horton.
Oh yes Edward Everett Horton. The first I remember him was as narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales, a part of the Rocky and Bulwinkle Show in the late 50’s and early 60’s. They were quite funny and his voice was so authentic, lyrical and entertaining. When I began to see him in old movies from the 20’s forward, you could tell immediately by his voice who he was. Quite a unique set of pipes, a funny face and a great supporting actor/comedian. I guess I am the President of the EEH fan club!!!
What makes you think I’m not?
I have very fond memories of my father and I watching old movies together when I was little girl. We lost my dad July 2020.
Now (I am 72 yrs old) When I watch these same films I can always hear my dad’s voice saying.
“ this next bit is my favourite part”
and so those bits are now my favourite parts.
My first encounter with Barbara Stanwyck was as the matriach on Big Valley so when I saw “Double Indemnity” it was a revelation. Adding this to the to-be-watched list.
Try Ball of Fire, Christmas in Connecticut, Meet John Doe.
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I love this movie. Yes the Rufus issue is problematic. But the Indiana Christmas scenes are wonderful. They remind me somewhat of my childhood in Illinois. Beulah Bondi is a treasure as is Barbara Stanwyck. Have you seen Ball of Fire? Ms. Bondi isn’t in it, only because she plays to sweet to be the housekeeper. (I am the president.)
Agreed. I absolutely love this movie