History Is Made at Night. 1937. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage. With Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur, Leo Carrillo, Colin Clive. DCP. 97 min.
Independently produced by Walter Wanger, History Is Made at Night bears, as Andrew Sarris famously described it, the most romantic title in the history of the movies. Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer star as Irene and Paul, two strangers who meet in Paris and fall in love under extraordinary circumstances: She’s a socialite who wants to divorce her abusive husband, Bruce (Colin Clive, in his most notable performance after Frankenstein), a ship magnate who will stop at nothing to keep her. Paul is a charming waiter who rescues Irene from a plot by Bruce to frame her for adultery. Together, they embark on a whirlwind romance that spans continents and defies fate. But Bruce is not willing to let Irene go so easily, and he will use every means at his disposal to ruin their happiness, even if it means endangering the lives of hundreds of passengers on board a doomed ocean liner. Begun without a finished script, History Is Made at Night slowly, fatefully evolves from screwball comedy to spiritual drama, with Clive’s character as a disturbing portent of the authoritarian madness taking root in Europe.