Rent Midnight (1939)

Classic Colbert . - Midnight review by Steve

Claudette Colbert- for my money- is the greatest female comedy actor in films. This is mainly a vehicle for her comic sparkle, and flair for suggesting a little bit more than she says. She plays an American showgirl who arrives in Paris in the rain wearing just a fabulous gold evening dress but without luggage or money.

She is picked up by a taxi driver of limited means (Don Ameche),  but soon is pretending to be the wife of a Hungarian aristocrat... for complicated reasons....  It's the Cinderella story. The charade will end at midnight. Will she be uncovered as penniless gold-digger by a high society superbitch (Mary Astor)?    

The film is a glorious dream of screwball fantasy. There is superb script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett full of wit and innuendo. The director Mitchell Leisen proves a reliable imitator of Ernst Lubitsch. But everything is elevated by this cast, with John Barrymore very much at home in this kind of continental farce.

There are depths. Colbert starts off as a mercenary, but inevitably she must settle for something other than wealth and title. The charade must end.  She finds love with the cab driver, but the film is very clear that for the poor, love is usually not enough. This is one of the great comedies of the '30s.