Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
Anoushka Slater
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
GManfred
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.
vincentlynch-moonoi
This is a very watchable film, but it does feel very dated, which not all films made in this time frame (1937) do. It isn't just that it depicts action in 1937, it's just the way the film was made. But, again, that doesn't make it not-watchable...it's quite entertaining.The romantic drama -- despite what some reviews say -- does not have elements of "comedy", although like most of life, does have some humor in it. It's about a love triangle among an obsessive and abusive businessman (Colin Clive), his wife (Jean Arthur), and a French headwaiter (Charles Boyer). Clive murders to save his pathetic marriage, and is more than willing to pin the crime on Boyer, who travels to American to pursue the woman he has fallen in love with. Leo Carrillo portrays Boyer's friend -- miscast as a French chef -- although he does rather nicely.Colin Clive shows himself to be a not very appealing actor here, and it has nothing to do with his evil character. He just seems rather limited, and perhaps he would be more at home in silent films. He hadn't improved much since playing Dr. Frankenstein in the horror classic six years earlier. He died later the year this was made from alcoholism and TB.Jean Arthur is interesting here in that she is a very far different actress from the comedies we often associate her with...and she is so good. This film was made near the beginning of her most successful period of acting.Boyer is remarkably good here, and I say that as someone who has never been overly impressed with him...though he is always "good". He seems the least dated of all the actors in the film. Very appealing.But the highlight of the film is the sudden twist the story takes late in the action. The special effects are a bit primitive (could I have ice cubes with that sinking?), but the way the story comes to a conclusion is really quite clever and ties into the plot surprisingly well.This is a wonderful film! Savor it!
theowinthrop
I saw this for the first time in 1986 when it was on television. It's romance, and the superb acting of Clive, Boyer, and Arthur (abetted by Carillo and Lebedev), and the speed of events in it captivated me. And then came that "Titanic" - style ending, when the ship is nearly sunk on an iceberg was wonderful. The film just swept me into it. I rarely have found an undiscovered film that did that to me.Colin Clive died prematurely of pneumonia in 1937, only a few months after this film was made. Remembered today for Victor Frankenstein in two films, he was more than simply the man who shouted "IT'S ALIVE!!". The two films that show his real acting ability that are still shown are his performances in this film and CHRISTOPHER STRONG (as the romantic lead opposite the young Kate Hepburn). JOURNEY'S END would be a welcome addition to this list, but I have never even seen it listed on cable (and I wonder if the film still exists). But his insanely jealous and vicious Bruce Vail must stand for all of his acting abilities until JOURNEY'S END reappears. Fortunately it is sufficient. Clive never is shown in a favorable manner in the movie. He is constantly watching Arthur's every move, and he constantly torments her. But this is how he treats everyone in his path. Ivan Lebedev was supposed to be a willing tool for a scheme to blackmail Arthur into returning to Clive. Lebedev is knocked out by Boyer, and looks dead when Boyer leaves with Arthur. Clive comes onto the scene, and sees that Lebedev is more valuable as a corpse than as a living servant - he kills him to have a weapon against Arthur and Boyer. Similarly, he is willing to sink his flagship on it's maiden voyage, killing hundreds of innocent people, to kill Arthur and Boyer. His suicide at the film's end really does not ameliorate his actions - in fact one wonders if he kills himself out of shame or because he believes his wife is dead (like a typical domestic violence wife killer). At the same time, had he not killed himself, Clive knew what he would have faced - he had screamed an order at the Captain of the ship by radio to continue sailing at top speed into the icepack, despite the Captain's misgivings. This was heard by his Board of Directors. As they sit glued to the radio, hearing the probable news of the ship's sinking, they keep glaring at Clive. Had the boat sunk, and he not committed suicide, they would have testified against him at his trial for mass murder.He would have been probably hanged.The name of his character is Bruce Vail, and one wonders why this shipping owner is named "Bruce". His ordering of his largest flagship, on it's maiden voyage, to sail at top speed into waters full of ice, may be based on another Bruce, who also died in 1937. That was J. Bruce Ismay (more properly "Joseph Bruce Ismay"), the former Chairman of the White Star Line, who was a survivor of the sinking, in 1912, of R.M.S. Titanic. Ismay ordered Captain Smith to sail the new ship at top speed to try to capture the Atlantic Blue Riband (a momentary victory had it been successful - the Titanic was not built for speed, like her Cunard rivals Lusitania and Mauritania). He may have kept some of the ice messages Smith was to get from the Captain (most Titanic experts don't believe this, but the public did). But worst of all, unlike Astor, Strauss, Guggenheim, Widener, Butt, Millett, Stead, and the other celebrities on the ship, Ismay entered a lifeboat, and tried to keep his obvious survival from becoming glaringly public. It did not work, and he was (despite generous attempts at whitewashing him by Lord Mersey) pilloried by the public as a coward. He was forced out of all his business directorships, and the chairmanship of the shipping line his father founded. And he lived in exile at an estate at Connemara in Ireland. It really did not help. Children would follow him even there yelling "Coward, coward!" He was destroyed by the disaster that destroyed his flagship.I believe that the shadow of Mr. Ismay is used to coat the character of Mr. Vail, possibly unfairly but probably based on the popular view of Ismay. Bruce Ismay died of diabetics in 1937. Unlike Bruce Vail he did not have to blow his brains out.
Barry Grey
When I wash up on that proverbial desert island with little more than a generator, a VCR (or DVD player) and a TV, I want "History is Made at Night" among the 10 films in my possession.Someone -- film critic Myron Meisel, I think -- once described this as the most romantic film ever shot in the English language, and I completely agree.The plot turns on some of the creakiest story points ever conceived. But no matter, because the leads are so appealing, the look of the film so overwhelmingly romantic (Borzage at his best) and the score is so warm and appropriate, that "HIMAN" is just irresistible.
