If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Now here's an offbeat Christmas classic which must be rediscovered. Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray are a pickpocket and district attorney who reluctantly fall in love over the holidays.It's so nice to see a film with so much warmth, humor, and good will. I know miserable families technically make for much more interesting stories, but I adored seeing the tenderness and strong bonds between MacMurray's character and his family, and the way it radiated onto Stanwyck's lady thief.Absolutely recommended by me, though with Stanwyck in the line up, I shouldn't have to tell you twice, right?

I was disappointed by "Remember the Night". Not that it is bad film – on the contrary, it is a good film. It is just that I was expecting a great film of the same quality as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street. Compared to these films, "Remember the Night" just does not have the quality of the story, the acting, the performances, the direction and the overall quality compare to the better known films of its era.For me, there are 11 classic Christmas films that I try, as best as I can, to find time to watch during every Christmas season. Generally, I think people use the phrase "classic Christmas films" to mean the best films of the genre made in the 1940s and 1950s. In my list of the top 11, I also insert three more "recent" films. They are, in order:1. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) 2. National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (1989) 3. A Christmas Carol (1951) 4. The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) 5. Miracle on 34th Street (1947) 6. The Bishop's Wife (1947) 7. The Homecoming, A Christmas Story (TV, 1971) 8. The Holy and the Ivy (1952) 9. Holiday Inn (1942) 10. Home Alone (1990) 11. Christmas in Connecticut (1945)I feel that "Remember the Night" falls into a second tier of classic Christmas films that include the following. The films in this list, I like to watch but not every Christmas and only after I have exhausted the list above:• All Mine to Give (1957) • Blossoms in the Dust (1941) • Bush Christmas (1947) • Holiday Affair (1949) • I'll be Seeing You (1944) • It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947) • The Miracle of the Bells (1948) • We're no Angels (1955)Overall, I like to divide Christmas into 4 sub-genres as follows: Golden Oldies (made before 1960), "Modern" dramas (made after 1969), Comedies (made after 1969) and Animated. My top films in each sub-genre are:Golden Oldies: as aboveModern Dramas (made after to 1969) 1. The Homecoming, A Christmas Story (TV, 1971) 2. Joyeux Noel (a. k. a. Merry Christmas) (2005) 3. Silent Night" (TV, 2002) 4. The Christmas Shoes (TV, 2002) 5. The Gathering (TV, 1977)Modern Comedies (made after to 1969) 1. National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (1989) 2. Home Alone (1990) 3. The Santa Clause (1994) 4. Home Alone, Lost in New York (1992) 5. The Santa Clause 2 (2002) 6. Christmas with the Kranks (2004) 7. Love Actually (2003) 8. A Christmas Story (1983) 9. Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2002) 10. Elf (2003)Animated 1. The following tie for first: • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (TV, 1964) • A Charlie Brown Christmas (TV, 1965) • Dr. Suess' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (TV, 1966) • Frosty the Snowman (TV, 1969) • Mickey's Christmas Carol (TV, 1983) 6. The Polar Express (2004) 7. Walt Disney/Donald Duck Christmas (a. k. a. A Disney Christmas Gift) (TV, 1982) 8. A Garfield Christmas Special (TV, 1987) 9. The Wish that Changed Christmas (TV, 1991) 10. The Little Drummer Boy (TV, 1968)

Like Christmas EVE (1947) that I watched the day before, this is a vintage Yuletide Hollywood film that should be better known in view of the talents involved; however, unlike the later film – which, given its undeserving *½ rating on Leonard Maltin's Film Guide, I was not expecting much from and was somewhat pleasantly surprised by the outcome – this turned out to be something of a disappointment. Not that it is in any way bad but, having a stylish director like Leisen, a peerless screenwriter like Preston Sturges and the sure-fire teaming of Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, it should have been a comedy classic. Rather tellingly, it seems to me, the film proved Sturges' last screenplay assignment before embarking on his meteoric directorial career that redefined the screwball genre; needless to say, the two leads would subsequently be iconically reteamed in Billy Wilder's seminal noir, DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) and twice more thereafter in the following decade which I am not familiar with.Anyway, the narrative revolves around an attractive chronic shoplifter (Stanwyck) who gets away with an expensive bracelet from one shop but is apprehended when trying to pawn it in another; MacMurray is the prosecuting D.A. who, after suffering through the would-be heart-rending histrionics of her has-been thespian attorney, secures a recess until after the festive season but gets a change of heart upon watching Stanwyck make her way to spending Christmas in police custody. Therefore he arranges to pay her $5,000 bail but the bondsman misconstrues his interest and dumps her on his doorstep – to the bemusement of MacMurray's "dumb" colored butler! Given the situation and the time of year, he takes her out to a dinner dance (where he embarrassingly comes face-to-face with the presiding judge) but, upon discovering that they both hail from Indiana and that she had not been home for the holidays in years, they are soon en route together to their old hometown. Unfortunately, since MacMurray only makes this trek once a year, they get lost and spend the night in a farm and wake up surrounded by a herd of cows and their irate owner who, once again misinterpreting the situation, rides them off to the Justice of the Peace at gunpoint. Thankfully, Stanwyck's quick wits – that had seen her slid out of many a jam with the law in the past – come to their rescue as she almost sets the latter's office on fire.So far, so humorous...even if it never quite reaches the zany heights of Leisen's earlier classics EASY LIVING (1937; from another Sturges script) and MIDNIGHT (1939; from a Billy Wilder-Charles Brackett screenplay). However, when the couple hit Indiana, the laughs mostly subside and are unfortunately supplanted by grim domestic melodrama (Stanwyck's confrontation with her unforgiving mother who has since remarried) and corny sentimentality (MacMurray's family includes concerned mother Beulah Bondi and future Sturges stalwart Sterling Holloway as an annoying simpleton of a farmhand). The expected local color (for those who like this sort of thing) comes courtesy of home-made sweet cooking, a philanthropic bazaar, a barnyard New Year's Eve dance and a series of individual piano renditions/sing-a-longs by the two stars and Holloway. The return trip to New York takes them to a romantic stroll along Niagara Falls (to avoid meeting up again with the proprietor of the arsoned "Justice of the Peace" office) but, as they reach the Court in the same taxicab, each decides to "throw" the case in favor of the other party…but since Stanwyck admits her guilt (following MacMurray's overzealous grilling intended to win the defendant the jury's sympathy), there is little else for them to do except for a concluding teary-eyed reconciliation in the court's elevator in which they swear each other eternal love. For the record, this was MacMurray's fourth of 9 films he made with director Leisen and he was also the nominal star of one of the most notorious of all Christmas movies, THE MIRACLE OF THE BELLS (1948; co-starring Frank Sinatra as a priest)!

'Remember the Night' is a better film then I give it credit for. It has an overall sentimental atmosphere in an otherwise very slow paced film. Too slow paced to stand out in my mind long after the film is over. It is more dramatic then the comedic promise from the synopsis. I wanted lots of yucks and I got more drama, which is fine if your watching a dramatic picture. A pretty shoplifter named Lee Leander (Barbara Stanwyck) is caught shoplifting around the Christmas season. Assistant District Attorney John Sargeant (Fred 'Absent Minded' MacMurry (my mother's favorite actor) gets the trial postponed till after Christmas. On his way home for the holidays to Indiana he takes her along for the ride so she can visit her estranged parents. The family reunion doesn't go along so well and so she goes to spend the holidays with the lawyer who is going to have to prosecute her once they return from the Christmas holidays. Slowly and surely the fall in love. That's basically the jest of the film. He brings her to Canada where she has the chance to run off and not go back to court. Does she go back? Does John prosecute her? Ohh the mystery?The film slowly gets better as it chugs along. It still never reaches the level of something rather memorable in the StoryBlazer cinematic film history. One of the better funny gags in the film has the couple getting lost driving in the dead of night only to crash a fence and end up in a country field. In the morning they awake to a cow sticking his head in the car window mooing loudly. They decide to milk the cow for all it's worth. (Ok that wasn't funny) I wish there were more clever and funny gags to brag about then stupid cows but hey Cows are funny. More random musings about the film. One of the musical moments of the picture inspired my wife to dance with me. Who says movies are not influential. It was also fun to see Sterling 'Winnie the Pooh' Holloway in a supporting role.Not a bad film. Not a Great Film. A kinna interesting dull film that is again better then I am giving it credit for. Once they kissed at Niagara in Canada and declared their love for one another, my wife declared, 'They fall in love, what more is there to watch. It's time to play Rummikub."