One of my favorite romantic comedies of all time finally comes to DVD:

the 1939 screwball Cinderella story “Midnight” stars Claudette Colbert as a street smart showgirl who pulls into Paris without a penny to her name and lands in the lap of luxury, thanks to a most unlikely fairy godfather (John Barrymore). She plays the part of the moneyed aristocrat in return for distracting a smooth high-society lothario (Francis Lederer) from Barrymore’s flighty young wife (a bubbly Mary Astor), but doesn’t count on persistent cabbie Don Ameche vying for her affections. One of the small gems scripted by Billy Wilder (with writing partner Charles Brackett) before he made the leap to directing, it’s polished up right by director Mitchell Leisen, Paramount’s master of light elegance.

It’s released as part of the “Universal Cinema Classics” imprint, even though the film was produced for Paramount – all those classic Paramounts are part of the Universal catalogue – and there are three other releases under that imprint coming out this week. Easy Living (1937) is a screwball delight set in the midst of the depression that sends Jean Arthur bouncing between the poles of poverty and wealth, thanks to a stray sable coat that falls from the heavens (in this case, a penthouse suite) and the assumptions that follow. Preston Sturges wrote the screenplay and Mitchell Leisen directs with his deft touch. The Major and the Minor (1942) marked the directorial debut of Billy Wilder and features a fabulous comic performance by Ginger Rogers. She Done Him Wrong (1933), written by and starring Mae West, doesn’t quite fit in the screwball genre of the rest of the films, but it’s a classic directed by the underrated Lowell Sherman and featuring a very young Car Grant.

Read the full review on my MSN DVD column here.

Read more »