Remember Last Night? (1935)

Director: James Whale                                    Writers: Harry Clork & Doris Malloy
Film Score: Franz Waxman                             Cinematography: Joseph A. Valentine
Starring: Robert Young, Constance Cummings, Edward Arnold & Reginald Denny

A non-horror outing for director James Whale at Universal, Remember Last Night? seems to begin as an attempt at screwball comedy but comes off as more of a bad mash-up of the RKO Astaire and Rogers pictures, and the Thin Man series at MGM. The plot concerns a group of wealthy couples participating in a progressive dinner, only this time the banquet is booze. Their reckless abandon and destructiveness harkens back to the 1920s jazz era more than it does a celebration of Prohibition’s repeal. After a group of thugs appear and talk about kidnapping one of the party, the film turns into a murder mystery when one of the guests is found dead in bed. The title refers to the fact that the mystery is so difficult to solve because none of participants can remember what they did the night before.

The set is huge, an opulent mansion owned by the deceased, and Whale uses it effectively, especially on traveling shots that move from room to room. There is also an interesting hypnosis scene in which Young remembers everyone going for a swim in the pool, with one of the women, a towel around her shoulders, saying, “I’m Dracula’s daughter,” a year before that film was made. But there is very little Whale to be found here, save that of the extreme close-ups he’s known for. Unfortunately, there are also some scenes that are difficult to watch, one being the destruction that the partygoers revel in. It’s hard to imagine Depression era audiences relating to this at all, much less seeing it as entertainment. Even worse, however, is the song performed by the party in blackface masks, complete with racist minstrel jokes and dialect. It’s not one of Whale’s better moments.

Another Whale trademark is the use of some notable character actors, among them Arthur Treacher, who began his film career playing a butler and never really recovered from it. Whale regular E.E. Clive plays the coroner’s photographer, and a couple of castaways from King Kong are also featured, Frank Reicher and Robert Armstrong. This was Whale’s first film after the successful Bride of Frankenstein, but once the Laemmle’s were forced to sell the studio the new management at Universal was uninterested in his non-horror films at the same time that Whale had completely lost interest in the genre that made him famous, and his relationship with the company became strained thereafter.

At the end of the day, the picture is really a failure. Not only the behavior of the characters, but the characters themselves are unlikable. Young and Cummings are rude and abusive, and have none of the charm of William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man. Edward Arnold is far too over the top in his gruff district attorney role, and his detective Edward Brophy is nearly unwatchable as the stupid cop. The brilliant Franz Waxman’s score is sparingly used and even that is fairly generic, especially considering the magnificence of his score for Bride of Frankenstein. Whale is said to have like the film, but he must have been one of the few. Remember Last Night? is ultimately a film best left forgotten.