Everything Happens at Night (1939)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Irving Cummings

Writers:

Art Arthur (original screenplay) and
Robert Harari (original screenplay)

Release Date:

22 December 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

Two newspapermen, one British and one American discover a murdered political commentator and compete to tell his story...

Plot Keywords:

Nurse | Hotel | Solitaire | Checkers | Ice Skater

Cast

Sonja Henie	...	Louise
Ray Milland	...	Geoffrey Thompson
Robert Cummings	...	Ken Morgan
Maurice Moscovitch	...	Dr. Hugo Norden (as Maurice Moscovich)
Leonid Kinskey	...	Groder
Alan Dinehart	...	Fred Sherwood
Fritz Feld	...	Gendarme
Jody Gilbert	...	Hilda
Victor Varconi	...	Cavas
William Edmunds	...	Hotel Clerk
George Davis	...	Bellhop
Paul Porcasi	...	Pierre - Bartender
Michael Visaroff	...	Otto - Woodcutter
Eleanor Wesselhoeft	...	Woodcutter's Wife
Christian Rub	...	Telegrapher

Runtime:

78 min (copyright length)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Filming Locations:

Sun Valley, Idaho, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Lester Matthews as "Philip" and Roger Imhof as "Judge" are in studio records/casting call lists, but they did not appear or were not identifiable in the movie.

Quotes:

Hilda: So, you're an American!
Ken Morgan: Yes.
Hilda: Are you a millionaire?
Ken Morgan: Well, a few of us aren't.
Hilda: Is it true that in America they have buildings as high as this mountain?
Ken Morgan: Oh, higher.
Hilda: Why do they build them so high?
Ken Morgan: I beg pardon?
Hilda: Why...do they build 'em...so high?
Ken Morgan: Oh! Well, that's so the people that build them and can't seem to rent them have a nice place to jump off.

Movie Connections:

References Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

Soundtrack:

The Blue Danube Waltz, Opus 314

Typical Sonja Henie fluff with Robert Cummings & Ray Milland

Like all of Sonja Henie's vehicles, this fun-filled 1939 Fox whimsy works like a cheery blend of comedy, romance, and ice skating dances. The main difference is that the plot is less focused on the skating scenes than the suspense and romance concerning Henie and her two leading men, Robert Cummings & Ray Milland.

I was surprised to see "Everything Happens at Night" has only one skating scene for Henie, quite an aberration considering that most of her movies are fraught with dances and skating. Cummings and Milland play two competing reporters that are sent to a small Swiss town to investigate a Nobel Prize winning commentator who is believed to be dead. Both find themselves falling for his daughter played by Henie. Cummings is a bit eccentric and rowdy while Milland comes off as a serious and straight-forward sort of fellow. They exchange roles courting her. Their scenes are irresistibly funny, charming, and merry. Then all of a sudden the movie becomes a spy thriller when a band of Gestapo villains arrive in the Swiss village to wreak havoc.

"Everything Happens at Night" is my fourth Henie after "Sun Valley Serenade"(1941), "One in a Million"(1936) and "My Lucky Star"(1938) and all rank as her very best.