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

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Jean Arthur, Charles Boyer, Colin Clive, and Leo Carrillo star in the big-budget "History is Made at Night," directed by Frank Borzage and released in 1937.Arthur plays Irene Vail, who has divorced her wealthy husband Bruce (Colin Clive), but he won't accept it. He hires his driver to fake an adultery situation with Irene while she is in Paris, which voids the divorce.Before that can happen, a headwaiter, Paul Dumond (Boyer) rescues her by pretending to be a thief and stealing her jewelry. Bruce has arrived to "catch" Irene, but he winds up in the closet, while the chauffeur is knocked out. Paul rushes out with her and returns her jewelry while they drive around Paris.Paul takes her to a restaurant, Château Bleu, where he works with his good friend Cesar (Carrillo). Paul and Irene fall in love. Unbeknownst to them, Bruce has murdered the chauffeur. He blames Paul and forces Irene to return to New York with him.Paul travels to New York to try to find her. He and Cesar obtain work in a fancy restaurant. He reserves a table for Irene, knowing she will eventually come there.This lovely film, beautifully acted by Boyer and Arthur, takes a surprising turn -- well, it was a surprise to me -- that makes for an exciting finale. Of interest, Irene and her husband are set to travel on the Hindenburg, which actually caught on fire and fell from the sky a few months later.This was Colin Clive's last film, sadly, as he was stricken with pneumonia and died at the age of 37 a few months later. The wonderful Boyer, so suave and with his to-die-for accent, actually didn't seem to have much vanity. He wore a toupee for movies, but all other times, including those when he was out in pubic, he did not. He and Arthur make a sweet couple. Arthur could do drama and comedy equally well.Romantic and atmospheric - it's so hard to believe that some of these films were made on sets.

This is an uncomfortable love story with more baggage attached than most others. It starts off like a melodrama with a murder and an attempted rape scene, and has as its pivotal character an obsessive neurotic millionaire. The heroine wants a divorce from him but he resists, and apparently will go to any lengths to prevent her from leaving him.Into this nasty prologue stumbles Charles Boyer, who saves the lady from a frameup and is embroiled in her circumstance by falling love with her. The story contains more tension and downbeat episodes than most romances and I felt this made for an unpleasant movie. There was good chemistry between Boyer and Jean Arthur, and the screen fairly glows when they are on screen together.Colin Clive, as her husband, was too good in his part and overwhelmed Arthur and Boyer by the sheer force and intensity of his characterization. I felt the picture would have been better off with a softer actor whose presence was not so keenly felt when he was not on screen. He hung over their scenes like an impending volcano. Couple this with an unbelievable finale, and I was left searching for a suitable rating for a picture which works as a romance but not as a representation of reality.

Two years before a shipboard romance with Irene Dunne in "Love Affair", suave Frenchman Charles Boyer did the same with Jean Arthur in this lavish and sometimes comic tearjerker. Arthur is a run-away bride who spends one glorious evening with Boyer after he rescues her from a plot by her evil husband (Colin Clive). Later separated from Boyer, Arthur ends up in New York where fate brings them together and onto a return voyage to France that will change the course of their destiny.This might not be the classic love story of Leo McCarey's 1939 masterpiece and its 1957 remake "An Affair to Remember", but it is worthy of inclusion with the greatest love stories ever made. Any film with Boyer and Arthur will include dollops of humor here and there, and it helps the film avoid being mawkish and melodramatic. Colin Clive is a predictable villain, much like Billy Zane years later in "Titanic". References to that ship and the Hindenburgh are mentioned. Some good special effects are involved in the film's chilling conclusion.The film has many implausibilities, but that has really no consequence because of the ultimate satisfaction it gives. Leo Carrillo shines as Boyer's pal, a cook who can do the most wonderful thing with lobster. That would be a great dinner to serve while watching this movie, with pink champagne of course!

Jean Arthur stars as a bored socialite married to insufferably possessive Colin Clive (didn't she notice he was a raving nut at some time during the courtship?) She sensibly divorces him, but he decides, with psychotic logic, to muck up the proceedings by arranging for his chauffeur to be found with Arthur in her Paris hotel room, thus forcing the divorce to be nullified (by French law). Charles Boyer is a Parisian headwaiter who overhears the scuffle between Arthur and the chauffeur from the next room; he climbs in through the balcony, overpowers both the chauffeur and Clive, and "kidnaps" Arthur, pretending to be a jewel thief. This being a movie, he spirits her at once to his restaurant, arriving just as it closes; he persuades his friend, the master chef, to keep it open for just the two of them. The scene which follows is the improbable, glamorous, heavenly highlight of the movie, with Arthur and Boyer falling in love over lobster and dancing a sweetly awkward tango during which Arthur tosses off her shoes (and, via movie symbolism, her previous unhappy life.) Unfortunately, Clive kills the unfortunate chauffeur to frame Boyer for the murder, and the contrivances that follow are too much to swallow even for the romantic melodrama intended here. Boyer and Arthur are an unimaginably charming pair, but they are asked to behave in a sickeningly noble fashion which doesn't suit either of them (Ingrid Bergman or Bette Davis could have made much more out of this scenario). Clive is so mad (and isn't funny or perversely charming at it) that the notion of Arthur submitting to him in order to save Boyer is very hard on the stomach. Even the most gushy-hearted romantic may have a hard time submitting to this one.