"Midnight' (1939), followed by 'Easy Living' (1937)

Friday, November 16, 2012
7:30 pm - 10:30 pm, UCLA Hammer Museum - Billy Wilder Theater

That Signature Style: The Films of Mitchell Leisen

See below for additional information.

Admission

$9 general admission; $8 non-UCLA Students, seniors, UCLA Alumni Association members (ID required).

Free for UCLA students (current ID required).

Contact

UCLA Film & Television Archive
(310) 206-8013
archive@cinema.ucla.edu

Website

http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2012-11-16/signature-...

Additional Information

In Person: David Chierichetti, author of Mitchell Leisen: Hollywood Director.

'Midnight' (1939). In director Mitchell Leisen’s delightfully frothy comedy, Eve (Colbert) is a showgirl who’s washed up in Paris without a penny. Crashing a party, she meets Georges Flammarion (Barrymore), who hires her to lure a French playboy away from his straying wife (Astor). Eve adopts the identity of a Hungarian countess, inspired by the Hungarian cab driver (Ameche) who pines to confess his love.

Followed by: 'Easy Living' (1937). Leisen’s fascination with the nature of identity is clear from the first scene of Easy Living when a sable coat, dropped by a millionaire banker in a fight with his wife, lands on struggling journalist Mary Smith (Arthur). While trying to return the coat, Mary is mistaken for the banker’s mistress and suddenly everyone’s life is turned upside down. In one particularly inspired scene, the machines of an automat go haywire sparking a choreographed delirium worthy of Jacques Tati.

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