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DVD Review Everything Happens at Night DVD Review (1 Viewer)

Matt Hough

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Everything Happens at Night DVD Review

Fifteen years before they menaced one another in Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder, Robert Cummings and Ray Milland faced off for the favors of another pretty blonde in Irving Cummings’ Everything Happens at Night. Unlike the famous Hitchcock thriller, most of Everything Happens at Night is a romantic comedy, but during the film’s last quarter hour, things do turn menacing and the tone shifts from comedy to melodrama. It’s a rather infelicitous combination of comedy and drama, and those expecting a Sonja Henie skating musical (she does get top billing) are apt to be disappointed.



Studio: Fox

Distributed By: N/A

Video Resolution and Encode: 480I/MPEG-2

Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1

Audio: English 2.0 DD

Subtitles: None

Rating: Not Rated

Run Time: 1 Hr. 17 Min.

Package Includes: DVD

Amaray case

Disc Type: DVD-R

Region: 1

Release Date: 04/22/2014

MSRP: $19.98




The Production Rating: 2.5/5

Two rival journalists - Geoff Thompson (Ray Milland) of The London Globe and Ken Morgan (Robert Cummings) of The New York Express - come to San Palo, Switzerland, in search of Nobel Prize-winning peacekeeper Dr. Hugo Norden (Maurice Moscovich), rumored to be hiding there from the Nazis under an alias. While they explore the city, they both meet and are entranced by a lovely nurse named Louise (Sonja Henie) little knowing that Louise’s “patient” is actually her father, Dr. Norden. It’s a race between the two reporters to see who can file the story first once their suspicions are confirmed about her patient’s identity.

Art Arthur and Robert Harari have provided the screenplay for a minor vehicle for one of Fox’s top stars with this combination of comedy, drama, and skating (though, to be fair, there really is only one ice production number plus a bit of tomfoolery with the klutzy Cummings trying to teach Louise/Sonja how to skate). For the most part, each of the two male stars gets his chance to woo and win the lady with Milland the more suave and devious of the two and Cummings the more endearingly naive and prone to pratfalls on skis and skates. Henie’s skating is restricted to one lengthy piece scored to some classical music favorites and choreographed by legendary dance director Nick Castle. Because Castle’s forte was tap dancing, Sonja’s skating tricks (which are an admittedly skimpy assortment of maneuvers which she hadn’t expanded on since coming to the movies three years earlier) are embellished by quite a bit of dancing on her toe picks amid the usual spins and single axles. Director Irving Cummings stages a pretty involving chase scene amid Swiss snowdrifts (actually filmed in Sun Valley) near film’s end with the Gestapo in hot pursuit of the fleeing heroes.

Though she was at ease with her English by this time, Sonja Henie is asked late in the film to carry the burden of some dramatic scenes that she’s simply not equipped to deal with convincingly. She’s lovely on the ice and has good rapport with both of her co-stars, but when things turn serious, she’s a bit out of her depth. Ray Milland’s character is actually something of a swine stealing stories and trying to sabotage Cummings at every turn making him not all that likable. While his open-hearted American may be a bit too earnest and gullible, Robert Cummings still manages to be the more appealing of the two gentlemen. Jody Gilbert plays a robust local with eyes for the two gents while Leonid Kinskey slinks around the film without a discernible purpose. Alan Dinehart gets in some good quips as Ken’s feisty boss, and Fritz Feld has an amusing sequence as he detains the Nazis by requiring their papers for inspection. Maurice Moscovich as the focus of the manhunt remains in the shadows for much of the movie making the most of his moments once he’s revealed and on the run.



Video Rating: 2.5/5  3D Rating: NA

The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 1.37:1 is faithfully retained for this DVD release. While sharpness is nicely above average, the film has difficulty resolving some of its imagery with flashing problems with polka dotted and striped clothing and shimmering in other instances. There’s also a curious moment in the film’s second half where the image repeatedly goes in and slightly out of focus. There is a hair observable at one point, and a bit of debris and light damage is also present along with an occasional reel change cue. The grayscale does right by the bright whites, but black levels are only average in depth. The film has been divided into chapters every ten minutes so there are 8 chapters present here.



Audio Rating: 2.5/5

The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound mix is decoded by Dolby Prologic into the center channel. While dialogue, music, and sound effects occupy the track in complementary fashion, there are plenty of anomalies present to occasionally distract the listener. Volume levels are overly robust and must be adjusted to prevent damage to equipment and distortion of the sound quality. Hiss comes and goes on the soundtrack, sometimes lightly but at other times with greater interference. There are pops and flutter on various occasions that are also quite irritating.



Special Features Rating: 0/5

There are no bonus features on this made-on-demand disc.



Overall Rating: 2.5/5

Everything Happens at Night is not really what one expects from a Sonja Henie film of this era. Perhaps Fox was trying to expand the star’s talents in other directions (Alice Faye and Betty Grable would also try their hands at something other than musicals during the Fox reigns to less than promising results), but this is not one of her better films despite performing well with her two male co-stars.


Reviewed By: Matt Hough


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