''A Night to Remember'' is a

mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' Films * ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film * ''Mystery'' ( ...

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

starring

Loretta Young Loretta Young (born Gretchen Young; January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an American actress. Starting as a child, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the fil ...

and

Brian Aherne William Brian de Lacy Aherne (2 May 190210 February 1986) was an English actor of stage, screen, radio and television, who enjoyed a long and varied career in Britain and the United States. His first Broadway appearance in ''The Barretts of W ...

. It was directed by Richard Wallace, and is based on the novel '' The Frightened Stiff'' by Kelley Roos. A mystery writer and his wife try to solve a murder when a corpse appears in their

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

apartment.

Plot

Nancy (

) and Jeff Troy (

) move into a somber-looking basement apartment building on 13 Gay Street, Greenwich Village, where the residents all act very strangely. Nancy recognizes one of the residents, Anne Carstairs (

Jeff Donnell Jean Marie "Jeff" Donnell (July 10, 1921 – April 11, 1988) was an American film and television actress. Early years Donnell was born in South Windham, Maine, to Harold and Mildred Donnell, when her father was superintendent at a boys' reform ...

), who acts very oddly and not at all the way Nancy remembers her. While eating in a restaurant, Nancy overhears a man, later identified as Louis Kaufman, talking on the telephone telling someone to meet him in the basement apartment. Louis goes to the basement apartment and is later found dead in the backyard, after having been drowned in the apartment's bathtub. Jeff recognizes the basement apartment as a former speakeasy and that the "monster" the housekeeper was afraid of is a turtle called "Old Hickory". Jeff and Nancy figure out that all the residents were being blackmailed by a man named Andrew Bruhl, who used to be a private investigator. Bruhl made all the blackmail victims live in one building to keep an eye on them. Jeff and Nancy figure out that Bruhl killed Kaufman, and that Bruhl is someone who lives in the building. The suspects are Anne Carstairs (

); her husband, Scott Carstairs ( William Wright); Eddie Turner, the landlord; Polly Franklin ( Lee Patrick), who works at the restaurant; Lingle (

Richard Gaines Richard Houston Gaines (July 23, 1904 – July 20, 1975) was an American actor. He appeared in over 75 film and television productions between 1940 and 1962. Early years Gaines was born in Indian Territory and grew up in Texas, learning "to h ...

), another resident; and the housekeeper, Mrs. Salter (

Blanche Yurka Blanche Yurka (born Blanch Jurka, June 19, 1887 – June 6, 1974) was an American stage and film actress and director. She was an opera singer with minor roles at the Metropolitan Opera and later became a stage actress, making her Broadway debu ...

Cast

as Nancy Troy *

as Jeff Troy *

as Anne Carstairs * William Wright as Scott Carstairs *

Sidney Toler Sidney Toler (born Hooper G. Toler Jr., April 28, 1874 – February 12, 1947) was an American actor, playwright, and theatre director. The second European-American actor to play the role of Charlie Chan on screen, he is best remembered for his p ...

as Inspector Hankins *

Gale Sondergaard Gale Sondergaard (born Edith Holm Sondergaard; February 15, 1899 – August 14, 1985) was an American actress. Sondergaard began her acting career in theater and progressed to films in 1936. She was the first recipient of the Academy Awar ...

as Mrs. Devoe *

Donald MacBride Donald Hugh MacBride (June 23, 1893 – June 21, 1957) was an American character actor on stage, in films, and on television who launched his career as a teenage singer (making several recordings in 1907) in vaudeville and went on to be an ...

as Bolling * Lee Patrick as Polly Franklin *

Don Costello Eldon Lawrence "Don" Costello (September 5, 1901 – October 24, 1945) was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. Background Costello was born in New Orleans on September 5, 1901. He was the son of James J. Costello and Mary E. Cos ...

as Eddie Turner *

as Mrs. Salter *

as Lingle * James Burke as Pat Murphy

Critical response

Film critic

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

wrote in

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

in 1943 that the film's "plot is tedious and involved" and "the film is largely a succession of looming shadows, conversations and mediocre gags and people creeping out of the darkness and saying "Boo!" Writing in

DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...

Jamie S. Rich Jamie S. Rich is an author of both prose and graphic novel fiction, a web series host, and editor of American comic books. He is currently Executive Editorial Director at IDW Publishing. Career As writer His first published work was the novel ...

described the film as "not as memorable as its title would have you believe," and although the "plot doesn't really add up to very much, Young is a joy to watch and it's all so light and fluffy, A Night to Remember ends up being pretty hard to hate."

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Night to Remember 1942 films 1940s crime comedy films American black-and-white films American crime comedy films American romantic comedy films Columbia Pictures films 1940s comedy mystery films Films based on American novels Films based on mystery novels Films directed by Richard Wallace Films produced by Samuel Bischoff American comedy mystery films 1942 romantic comedy films 1940s American films