1072 History Is Made at Night

[DarkImbecile]

History is Made at Night



Suffused with intoxicating romanticism, History Is Made at Night is a sublime paean to love from Frank Borzage, classic Hollywood’s supreme poet of carnal and spiritual desire. On the run through Europe from her wealthy, cruelly possessive husband, an American (Jean Arthur) is thrown together by fate with a suave stranger (Charles Boyer)—and soon the two are bound in a consuming, seemingly impossible affair that stretches across continents and brings them to the very edge of catastrophe. Lent a palpable erotic charge by the chemistry between its leads, this delirious vision of lovers beset by the world passes through a dizzying array of tonal shifts—from melodrama to romantic comedy to noir to disaster thriller—smoothly guided by Borzage’s unwavering allegiance to the power of love.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New conversation between author Hervé Dumont (Frank Borzage: The Life and Films of a Hollywood Romantic) and film historian Peter Cowie
• Interview from 2019 with critic Farran Smith Nehme about director Frank Borzage’s obsession with romantic love
• Audio excerpts of a 1958 interview with Borzage from the collection of the George Eastman Museum
• Radio adaptation of the film from 1940, broadcast by The Screen Guild Theater and starring Charles Boyer
• New program about the restoration
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  PLUS: An essay by critic Dan Callahan

[Pavel]

Any doubts I've had about Bressonaire having insider information are now gone

[bottlesofsmoke]

This is great news, I absolutely love this movie but have only ever gotten to see it in pretty crummy versions. I have to imagine a 4K restoration will make for quite a different experience.

[soundchaser]

This is great news, I absolutely love this movie but have only ever gotten to see it in pretty crummy versions. I have to imagine a 4K resoration will make for quite a different experience.

I've been going through Borzage's work chronologically and now I'm wondering if I should put things on hold until April...

[movielocke]

Wow, this looks like another Show Boat in that the extras are better than the main feature. Don't love the movie, but maybe it's better the second time around, really intrigued by that huge stash of extras though.

[Glowingwabbit]

This is great news, I absolutely love this movie but have only ever gotten to see it in pretty crummy versions. I have to imagine a 4K resoration will make for quite a different experience.

I've been going through Borzage's work chronologically and now I'm wondering if I should put things on hold until April...

I'm doing the same this year and was just thinking the same thing.

[bottlesofsmoke]

I've been going through Borzage's work chronologically and now I'm wondering if I should put things on hold until April...

Just a quick comparison between the version on the Criterion Channel and the restoration clip shows a pretty big difference. Have you seen it before? If you watch it and like it, you can still get the blu and revel in the improvement and extras. If you don’t like it, well then you saved some cash.

I’ve run into similar problems before and found when I put stuff on hold it’s a lot harder to pick back up again. But that’s just me!

[soundchaser]

I've been going through Borzage's work chronologically and now I'm wondering if I should put things on hold until April...

Just a quick comparison between the version on the Criterion Channel and the restoration clip shows a pretty big difference. Have you seen it before? If you watch it and like it, you can still get the blu and revel in the improvement and extras. If you don’t like it, well then you saved some cash.

I’ve run into similar problems before and found when I put stuff on hold it’s a lot harder to pick back up again. But that’s just me!

Yeah, I checked the version on the CC and it's pretty ragged, but I figured it would be the best we had for a while. I've got somewhere around 8 of his films that I want to see before I get here anyway, so maybe I can just spread things out to 2 or 3 a month. Not like I don't have a ton else to watch!

[knives]

Wow, this looks like another Show Boat in that the extras are better than the main feature. Don't love the movie, but maybe it's better the second time around, really intrigued by that huge stash of extras though.

And I have to politely disagree with regards to film, though not extra, quality. It’s possibly my favorite sound Borzage and I’m excited to have an excuse to see it again.

[therewillbeblus]

Agreed, I'm hot and cold on Borzage but this is one of my favorites- HinkyDinkyTruesmith recommended it a while back and I suspect he's gonna be thrilled by this

Eh may as well just post part of the exchange/my writeup from the Borzage thread

Have you seen History Is Made at Night, TWBB? While I admire 7th Heaven and have great affection for Lucky Star, History is I think where Borzage's romantic power is at its fullest (and least problematic) blossom. It's where his material is at its closest to obliterating itself in sheer absurdity, but where the dignity of his characters transcends it. Shifts of tone and plot are so perfectly handled as to beggar belief. The conviction of him and his cast is awe-inspiring there, where I think the added adversity of dialogue makes it more of a challenge to navigate the unreality of the scenario, whereas in the silents the unnatural form itself accommodates such miracles.

Finally caught up with History is Made at Night and while it’s too challenging for me to compare Borzage’s strengths in elicitation of emotion in silent vs sound films, I thought this was a terrific tale of the ‘grand romantic gesture’ of existential risk via one-way ticket to high stakes adventure. These types of plots walk the tightrope between being unbelievable contrivances or emotional proclamations of love-conquering-all (though I did have a professor once who claimed to have followed his love interest around the world to profess his love to her, so it’s not necessarily a fabrication!) but this one finds a sweet spot where Paul and Irene engage in this tense dance of attraction while remaining grounded to reality in awareness of consequence.

I loved the use of ‘Coco’ for Irene to express her affection, and the role-playing games that follow; a playfulness that most can probably recognize from blossoming romances in our pasts. The humor worked well too, in gentle warmth like Boyer’s transitional attitude between professionalism and peer loyalty when on the job, or for laughs like the excitable chef interaction descending into exaggerated Italian gibberish near the end.

I wasn’t crazy about the Titanic ending, not only because of the obvious physical metaphor, or because it felt out of step with the micro-intimacy of our participation outlets despite the range of space traversed, but because rest of the departure of attention to our surrogate characters for lengths of time which took me out of the movie during the act when audience involvement is critical to the payoff. Still, despite this detour, the rest of the film worked perfectly, and I appreciate the passion you have for it. Like many films, I could see this one growing on me with revisits, and I’m now hungry for more Borzage.

[FrauBlucher]

Any doubts I've had about Bressonaire having insider information are now gone

It's a ruse


For those keeping track this interestingly is licensed through Janus

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

*she, but yes, I am very excited for this release. I have a downloaded file of the film that is marginally better than the one on the Channel right now (not interlaced, and no greenish hue) but it's so lacking in detail––seeing the clip and screenshots from Criterion already are exciting! And I'm very glad to see another Jean Arthur film added to the collection.

The film benefits from rewatches, I think, because the zaniness of the plot is less shocking. I definitely was put off by it when I first watched it, especially the ending. I didn't hate it, but, not knowing Borzage as I do now, I found it very shlocky. Now I adore it and adore Borzage (Man's Castle is my favorite, followed by this).

[therewillbeblus]

Whoops sorry, I sometimes imagine you are Eddie Bracken. I'm looking forward to watching this again, and maintain that the Coco scene is one of the most beautiful moments from 30s cinema.

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

No worries, worse things than that.

The Coco scene is 100% that––when Jean Arthur asks Coco to ask Charles Boyer to dance, and has to repeat it––her delivery is so magical. Love it!

[therewillbeblus]

Exactly, that destroyed me in all the best ways

[domino harvey]

I thought this was a M E S S. Tonally all over the place, but not in any particularly interesting way since the straight drama of the jealous husband side is so one note and uninteresting and while Charles Boyer does his damnedest to keep the comic/romantic half afloat singlehandedly, it's not enough. Maybe with a less broad comic actor in the chef role to provide ample bolstering of their exchanges, it might have withstood more. But the script for this thing is ridiculous, and while I enjoy the irony of hearing about the Hindenburg (in the same year it crashed!) but ending with the Titanic, the last act is a joke and evidence that this movie wants to be now a third movie when it hasn't really done enough with its other two attempts. I have long heard this bandied about as a forgotten masterpiece, but like a lot of hard to see films, I suspect its overinflated reputation will stamp some of that talk out. This is like the perfect film for someone who likes the Talk of the Town...

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

This is like the perfect film for someone who likes the Talk of the Town...

This statement is not only accurate but entirely reasonable.

[knives]

There does seem to be a connection.

[Never Cursed]

Genuine question (for I have not seen the film) - what is your issue, domino, with Talk Of The Town?

[domino harvey]

Much like this film, it’s a mishmash of approaches that neither gel into a satisfying whole nor prove worthwhile on their own. It’s worse than this, though, as the dramatics are more asinine and also more heightened in the mix, especially in the end run

[therewillbeblus]

I only like it as a barely-conscious self-skewering reflection of Hollywood's impotence to actualize political change in any meaningful way, but I already wrote enough about that elsewhere. I think History is Made at Night is a lot better, and actually has a genuinely touching moment unlike that Grant film, but I too had a problem with the ending- just overall more forgiving of the unevenness and more taken with its charms.

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

Would it surprise anyone to learn that my favorite Shakespeare plays to revisit are his romances? I love the mishmash of genres, the absurd plotting, the broad but sharp characterization. History Is Made at Night and The Talk of the Town both are crammed full of moments that I cherish, characters I adore, atmospheres I remember long after. I would never force them on anyone else, they both are queer ducks, but I will shamelessly defend them to the end. Jean Arthur admiring herself dressed in Ronald Colman's robes in the mirror, Jean Arthur asking Charles Boyer's hand––I'm sorry, Coco, to ask him to dance with her. The moment on rewatch that convinced me the ending worked, actually, was when

SpoilerShow

Arthur comes back on the boat, and Boyer shouts at her no––the sheer conviction in his face is transcendent.

[L.A.]

Beaver.

[Ribs]

Interesting the two features which appear to have been made for this release are 2-3 years old - wonder why this might have been sitting on the shelf for an extended period if they had completed these features so long ago.

[FrauBlucher]

Bluray.com