Night and Day (1946)

Thanks to the TCM channel, we can easily view old classics like this. Although nicely shot in Technicolor, the print is just a shade pastel, and looks better with the TV's color cranked up just a little bit. The movie starts in 1914, with Porter at Yale and already writing songs, even though he was a law student. However, at Christmas break, after he told his mother that he wasn't going back, he was going to focus on writing music instead, 'Oh, I could be a lawyer, but not a very good one. When I look at a lawbook I think of a song. When I read a legal case, I hear a melody.' Like almost any biographical movie, certain parts are fictionalized, and many things have to be left out. But this movie gives us the pleasure of many Cole Porter classics and a glimpse into the man behind the songs. A good movie for anyone who is a fan of Porter's, or American musical history in general.

Cary Grant was 41/42 when this was filmed, so it is a bit of a stretch imagining him, in the beginning, as a college student. This movie came out the same year (1946) as 'Notorious', and one year before one of my favorite Cary Grant movies, where he plays an angel in 'The Bishop's Wife (1947).'