Remember Last Night? (1935) DVD-R

Starring Edward Arnold, Robert Young, Constance Cummings, George
Meeker, Sally Eilers, Reginald Denny, Gregory Ratoff, Robert Armstrong,
Jack La Rue
Directed by James Whale

Print: black/white
Runtime: 81 min.
Genre: mystery
Print Quality: B

In the wake of The Thin Man, every studio in Hollywood scrambled to
churn out sophisticated mystery-comedies wherein murders are solved
by a wealthy, attractive, fun-loving young couple. One of the best of these
Thin Man derivations was Universal's Remember Last Night, adapted from
Adam Hobhouse's novel Hangover Murders. During a wild cocktail party
at the Long Island estate of Tony and Carlotta Milburn (Robert Young and
Constance Cummings), one of the guests is murdered. It helps not at all
that the revellers were too drunk to remember exactly what happened -
nor is it beneficial to the case that detective Danny Harrison (Edward
Arnold) is a personal friend of all the suspects. In addition, no one but
Harrison seems willing to take the case seriously, though of course
eventually Tony and Carlotta are obliged to do a bit of sleuthing on their
own. The light-hearted aspects of the film are offset by moments of
genuine terror, notably the scene in which Professor Jones (Gustav von
Seyffertitz) attempts to solve the mystery by hypnotizing the suspects,
only to become a victim himself when he gets too close to the truth. An
unbilled E.E. Clive provides some great black-humor moments as a police
photographer who prefers to 'artfully' arrange the corpses. As always,
director James Whale invests his material with several of his visual
trademarks, including his fascination with elaborate set decorations.
There are probably more off-angle close-ups of fancy wall clocks in this
picture than in any other Hollywood film - and how about that cocktail bar
in the Milburn's living room, designed in the shape of a yacht?