The Night is Young

"The Night is Young" 1935 directed by Dudley Murphy, produced by Harry Rapf, written by Edgar Alan Woolf and Frank Schulz from the story by Vicki Baum for MGM.

Ramon Novarro, Evelyn Laye, Charles Butterworth, Una Merkel, Edward Everett Horton, Donald Cook, Henry Stephenson, Rosalind Russell, Herman Bing.

I expected to greatly dislike this film having read that it was an operetta and it failed horrendously at the box office causing Novarro to leave MGM or perhaps MGM chose not to renew his contract. It was his final film with the studio he worked for from 1924 to 1934. To my surprise, the film is among his best during the sound era. The problem was movie goers no longer trusted his films to be a sure thing as they had been pretty touch and go. "Son of India". "Huddle", "The Son-Daughter", "The Barbarian", "The Cat and the Fiddle" and "Laughing Boy" were flawed, and they didn't make movie goers say, "Hey! Let's go see the new Novarro movie!" Add to that the fact that Evelyn Laye was not known at all. After the failure of this film, she returned to the London stage and only stepped before the cameras in 1958.

The film is enchanting without becoming saccharine sweet. Charles Butterworth and Una Merkel provide comic relief and unlike his teaming with Jeanette MacDonald, Novarro and Laye have charm and humor together. The direction is superb, and the musical numbers are effervescent and natural. Novarro and Laye are adorably charming, and it is a pity they weren't teamed again.