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Remember the Night

Remember the Night is a 1940 American Christmas romantic comedy trial film starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray and directed by Mitchell Leisen. The film was written by Preston Sturges and was the last of his scripts shot by another director, as Sturges began his own directorial career the same year with The Great McGinty.[1]

Remember the Night

Paramount Pictures
  • January 19, 1940 (1940-01-19)

94 minutes

United States

English

Plot[edit]

Lee Leander is arrested for stealing a bracelet from a New York City jewelry store. The assistant district attorney, John "Jack" Sargent, is assigned to prosecute her. The trial begins just before Christmas, but to avoid facing a jury filled with the holiday spirit, Jack has the trial postponed on a technicality.


When he hears Lee complaining to her lawyer about spending Christmas in jail, Jack feels guilty and asks bondsman Fat Mike to post bail. Fat Mike assumes that Jack intends to seduce Lee, and after he posts bail for her, he delivers her to Jack's apartment. Discovering that Lee is a fellow Hoosier (native of Indiana), and that she has nowhere to spend Christmas, Jack offers to drop her off at her mother's house on his way to visit his own family.


On the drive, Jack gets lost in Pennsylvania and the couple spends the night parked in a field. The next morning, they are arrested by the landowner for trespassing and destruction of property, and taken to an unfriendly justice of the peace. Lee starts a fire in his wastebasket as a distraction, and the pair flees. Lee's mother, a malevolent, embittered woman, has remarried, and does not want a relationship with her daughter, whom she considers a lost cause.


Jack takes Lee home to spend Christmas with his family. She is warmly received by Jack's cousin Willie, aunt Emma, and his mother, even after Jack reveals Lee's past. On New Year's Eve, Jack kisses Lee at a barn dance, and later that night, his mother visits Lee's bedroom for a talk. She reveals that the family was poor during Jack's childhood, and that he worked hard to put himself through college and law school. She asks Lee to give Jack up, rather than jeopardize his career, and Lee agrees.


On the way back to New York via Canada and Niagara Falls (to bypass Pennsylvania), Jack tells Lee that he loves her, and tries to persuade her to jump bail, but she refuses. Back in New York, Jack tries to lose Lee's case by using harsh and aggressive questioning to force the jury to sympathize with her. Jack's boss has been alerted about the affair, and secretly listens outside the courtroom. Realizing that Jack may damage his career, Lee changes her plea to guilty. As she is led away, Jack wants to marry Lee on the spot. She refuses, saying that if he still feels the same way after she has completed her prison term and he has had time to consider his decision, they can marry. She asks that he only stand beside her and hold her hand during her sentencing, and he promises to do so.

as Lee Leander

Barbara Stanwyck

as John Sargent

Fred MacMurray

as Mrs. Sargent

Beulah Bondi

as Aunt Emma

Elizabeth Patterson

as Francis X. O'Leary

Willard Robertson

as "Chilly" Willie Simms

Sterling Holloway

as Judge (New York)

Charles Waldron

as District Attorney, John's boss

Paul Guilfoyle

as Tom

Charles Arnt

as Rufus, John's servant

Fred 'Snowflake' Toones

as "Fat" Mike, the bail bondsman

Tom Kennedy

as Lee's Mother

Georgia Caine

as Farmer Hank

John Wray

Thomas W. Ross as Mr. Emory, small town judge

as Mrs. Emory

Virginia Brissac

as Judge at Rummage Sale

Spencer Charters

as Nightclub Singer (uncredited)

Martha Mears

Home media[edit]

Universal Studios released NTSC editions of the film on VHS on September 12, 1995, and on DVD on October 18, 2010. A Region A Blu-ray edition was made available on November 13, 2018. Odeon Entertainment released a Region 2 DVD on November 3, 2014.

Adaptations[edit]

The film was twice adapted as a one-hour radio play on Lux Radio Theatre; on March 25, 1940, with McMurray and Stanwyck reprising their roles,[8] and on December 22, 1941, with McMurray now paired with Jean Arthur.[9]


Lux Video Theatre presented a television adaptation of the film on May 5, 1955, starring Dennis O'Keefe and Jan Sterling. It was directed by Richard Goode and Buzz Kulik from an adaptation by S.H. Barnett.[10]


The story outline was used unofficially in an episode of Stanwyck's television series The Big Valley ("Judgement [sic] in Heaven", Season 1, Episode 15).


Lifetime presented a television movie in 1997 titled On the 2nd Day of Christmas, starring Mary Stuart Masterson and Mark Ruffalo, directed by James Frawley. The story is similar to that of Remember the Night.

List of Christmas films

at IMDb

Remember the Night

at the TCM Movie Database

Remember the Night

at Letterboxd

Remember the Night

at AllMovie

Remember the Night

at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films

Remember the Night

Lux Radio Theater version with original cast