Night and Day

Overview

Faced with the challenge of writing a screenplay based on the life of fabulously wealthy, fabulously successful composer Cole Porter, one Hollywood wag came up with a potential story angle: "How does the S.O.B. make his second million dollars?" By the time the Porter biopic Night and Day was released, the three-person scriptwriting team still hadn't come up with a compelling storyline, though the film had the decided advantages of star Cary Grant and all that great Porter music. Roughly covering the years 1912 to 1946, the story begins during Porter's undergraduate days at Yale University, where he participated in amateur theatricals under the tutelage of waspish professor Monty Woolley (who plays himself). Though Porter's inherited wealth could have kept him out of WWI, he insists upon signing up as an ambulance driver. While serving in France, he meets nurse Linda Lee (Alexis Smith), who will later become his wife. Focusing his attentions on Broadway and the London stage in the postwar years, Porter pens an unbroken string of hit songs, including "Just One of Those Things," "You're the Top," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "Begin the Beguine," and the title number. The composition of this last-named song is one of the film's giddy highlights, as Porter, inspired by the "drip drip drip" of an outsized rainstorm, runs to the piano and cries "I think I've got it!" The film's dramatic conflict arises when Porter is crippled for life in a polo accident. Refusing to have his legs amputated, he makes an inspiring comeback, even prompting a WWI amputee to remark upon his courage! Corny and unreliable as biography, Night and Day is redeemed by the guest appearances of musical luminaries Mary Martin (doing a spirited if disappointingly demure version of her striptease number "My Heart Belongs to Daddy") and Ginny Simms, the latter cast as an ersatz Ethel Merman named Carole Hill. Jane Wyman, seen as Porter's pre-nuptial sweetheart Gracie Harris, also gets to sing and dance, and quite well indeed. Beset with production problems, not least of which was the ongoing animosity between star Grant and director Michael Curtiz, Night and Day managed to finish filming on schedule, and proved to be an audience favorite -- except for those "in the know" Broadwayites who were bemused over the fact that Cole Porter's well-known homosexuality was necessarily weaned from the screenplay.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/04/2018
UPC:	0888574775278
Original Release:	1946
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Time:	2:08:00
Sales rank:	28,049

Special Features

Vintage Shorts Desi Arnaz and His Orchestra and Musical Movieland; Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in the Classic Looney Tunes Cartoon The Big Snooze; Cole Porter Musicals Trailer Gallery

Editorial Reviews

Night and Day purports to be a biography of Broadway composer Cole Porter, but as with most such musical "biopics" of the period, it bares only a scant resemblance to the subject. The real Porter story is much more interesting, dealing as it does with a wealthy sophisticate from a prominent family whose marriage to a wealthy socialite masks his (and possibly her) homosexuality; even more notably, both Porter and his wife, Linda, were apparently good friends and quite fond of each other, adding another potentially interesting layer to their story. Since none of this could be dealt with in 1946, the result is a rather uneventful and unconvincing story filled with showbiz clichés. In other instances (such as Words and Music), the ridiculous screenplay is compensated for by a series of dazzling numbers. Night and Day's numbers, for the most part, are not standouts (despite the dazzling quality of Porter's words and music). This is largely due to the fact that they too often lack real powerhouses performing them. Jane Wyman does reasonably well with her numbers, but she's not a dynamo, and Ginny Simms is simply no Ethel Merman. Only Mary Martin, recreating the number that launched her career, provides the kind of punch that is required. What makes Night and Day work at all is its stars. Cary Grant and Alexis Smith provide enough charisma and star quality to make viewers forget the silliness of the script and the uninspired musical numbers. Grant even manages to suggest that perhaps there's a reason why Porter can't seem to commit to spending time with his wife. The two stars, along with supporting talent like Monty Woolley and an amusingly French Eve Arden, rise far above the material, transforming it into a very pleasant way to waste a couple of hours.