This Is The Night

Cary Grant’s feature film debut was in this urbane sex comedy of 1932 set in Paris and Venice. Scripted by George Marion Jr. and Benjamin Glazer from two or more plays of the period, the film benefits from its racy precode dialogue (I’m just a young girl living by her hips) and costumes, and the sets are attractively lush. Unfortunately, director Frank Tuttle was no Ernst Lubitsch or Rouben Mamoulian (who were making similar films at the same studio, Paramount, around the same time), and although the movie has its period charms, a unifying style that might make it something more is missing. Still, the playful use of incidental music is appealing, as is the cast, which includes Lily Damita, Charles Ruggles, Roland Young, and Thelma Todd. (JR)

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