A Kind-Of Christmas Movie: Remember the Night (1940)

Preston Sturges was having a hard time during the creation of this classic Christmas film against Paramount producer Al Lewin. "Writing [...] almost caused me to commit hara-kiri several times, but I postponed it for some later assignment. The trouble was in finding a way to get some pizazz into the story." (Sturges, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges: His Life in His Words) Initially inspired by personal experience, falling in love with second wife and socialite Eleanor Hutton on a road trip to Palm Beach (which would also be mirrored in "The Palm Beach Story"), the problems laid in motive. 

"When I had Fred MacMurray, as the district attorney, take Barbara Stanwyck, the girl on trial for theft, up to the mountains to reform her, the script died of pernicious anemia. When I had him take her up because his conscience bothered him having had her trial continued after the Christmas season, it perished from lack of oxygen. When I had him take her up by charitable impulse and the Yuletide spirit, it expired from galloping eunuchery. So I thought of a novelty. The district attorney takes her up to the mountains for the purpose of violating the Mann Act."

Once in production, director Mitchell Leisen (who also directed "Easy Living") further pared down "Remember the Night" so much, it would push Sturges into both writing and directing his films from that point on. Leisen found MacMurray's dialogue "a bit theatrical, and the wordiness of the dialogue demanded a certain articulate quality on the part of the actor that MacMurray simply didn't have. Cutting MacMurray's lines down to the minimum, Leisen played up the gentle strength MacMurray could project so well." (Remember the Night (1940) - Articles - TCM.com) "The girl on trial for theft," Stanwyck's Lee Leander would end up being the main focus, the crime being committed at the beginning of the film causing both the audience and Fred MacMurray's  John Sargent to hate to only evolve into loving her at the end of the film. Ironically, Sturges would end up winning for Best Original Screenplay that year.

"Remember the Night" was 8 days ahead of schedule and 50,000 under budget thanks to Leisen's leading lady. ""[She] was the greatest," he said. "She never blew one line through the whole picture. She set that kind of pace and everybody worked harder, trying to outdo her. She was always right at my elbow when I needed her. We never once had to wait for her to finish with the hairdresser or the make-up man." While on set, Sturges would even pitch her the idea to write a screwball comedy just for her which would become the great "The Lady Eve."

The end result had pickpocket Lee stealing a bracelet from a jeweler for no good reason. We never find out the reasoning why she did it, but it takes her directly into court before Christmas complete with an idiot for a lawyer and an assistant District Attorney who doesn't want the Christmas spirit to infect the jury. Halting the trial, Sargent finds himself feeling guilty for leaving Lee in jail over the holiday and gets a bondsman to set her bail until the next trial. But she has nowhere to go in New York City with her hotel room rent overdue, so Sargent finds himself taking her back to their mutual home state of Indiana. 

Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times would consider "Remember the Night" as "the real curtain-raiser for 1940." "It is a memorable film, in title and in quality, blessed with an honest script, good direction and sound performance. Its character drawing is deft and in splendid proportion. The incidents chosen to work the changes in the hearts and minds of the central folk are apt and aptly presented. Rarely has a theme been so smoothly advanced and so pleasantly played out so sensible and credible a conclusion." Sturges best described his own film as "love reformed her and corrupted him, which gave us the finely balanced moral that one's man meat is another man's poison, or caveat emptor. As it turned out, the picture had quite a lot of schmaltz, a good dose of schmerz and just enough schmutz to make it at the box office."