Night and Day (1946) User Reviews

Music is the High Point

[gftbiloxi · 5/10 · 29 March 2005]

One of Broadway's most brilliant songwriters, Cole Porter (1891-1964) worked hard to present an unflappable image to the world--but in truth he was a tremendously complex man, a homosexual who lived with wife Linda Lee Thomas in a marriage of convenience, subject fits of depression, and suffering horrific pain in the wake of a horseback riding accident which left him crippled at the peak of his career. Add to this the fact that his lyrics were often censored for film, radio, and records and it seems very odd that 1940s Hollywood would attempt a biography. What they did, of course, was fictionalize it to the max, reducing the story of his life to a mix of backstage musical and domestic drama--and transforming the tiny and waspish Porter and his icy bride Linda into handsome Cary Grant and lovely Alexis Smith. The result is pure nonsense, of course, but when you tack in a host of Porter classics--fantasy it might be, but it is entertaining enough to watch.

Grant is no singer, but he has considerable charm, and Smith is as always extremely attractive. The supporting cast is remarkably strong, featuring the likes of Jane Wyman, Eve Arden, Dorothy Malone, and Alan Hale--and rare screen appearances by Monty Woolley and Mary Martin, who deliver knockout performances of "Miss Otis Regrets" and "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" respectively. The DVD transfer is reasonable, and although the bonuses are pure fluff they are amusing. While it may be short on fact with a story little more than pure melodrama, the music and performers make NIGHT AND DAY a reasonably pleasant way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Gary F. Taylor, GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Cole Porter Bio

[harry-76 · 7/10 · 11 April 1999]

Have you ever liked a film you knew wasn't all that great, yet one you simply enjoyed watching? That's the way I feel about "Night and Day," a musical bio with a large dose of fantasy mixed in on that great American songwriter Cole Porter. Perhaps it's the pleasure of watching Cary Grant having a ball playing the composer, and even singing a few tunes to boot. Or maybe it's the youthful Alexis Smith as a perfect "Mrs. Porter," coping with challenges as a famous songwriter's spouse. Certainly Monty Woolley is amusing as himself, playing a role he reportedly lived with the real-life composer. Then there's that honey-coated contralto Ginny Simms looking gorgeous in Technicolor and beautifully singing some of Porter's most expressive music and lyrics. In the supporting cast is a sprighty Jane Wyman (before she became laden with heavy dramatic roles) doing several comic-singing turns, and even a surprise bit from Eve Arden as a French cabaret star, "Gabrielle," performing an early, lesser-known show number. The screen has only one bio of this outstanding American songwriter, one who is respected by both popular and "serious" composer-peers, as well as by the critics and general public alike. Surely the scripters "did a job" on Porter's factual life, yet at least we have this elaborate effort, with a gung-ho cast that's ready & willing to give it their all. They all look like they're having a great time, and I for one have fun with them. Until a better Porter bio comes along, this one will have to do.

should be viewed by all Cary Grant fans

[ragamullin · 5/10 · 22 February 2006]

I enjoyed seeing Cary Grant in a movie that I had not seen this movie before. I noticed a lot of good actors as well. I understand Cole Porter wished Cary Grant to be cast to play the famous composer. It's impossible to anticipate if you will like this movie, those who wish to be more critical always find fault in every movie, but fans of Cary Grant, Cole Porter, and the many other fine actors found in this movie may be quite happy watching it. I recommend watching it to judge for yourself. You will find Monty Woolley, whose fine personality is not in enough films. Always beautiful Alexis Smith is never more beautiful. Jane Wyman plays a substantial role worth viewing. Keep an open mind and enjoy the movie!

Short on fact and long on great music...

[Doylenf · 31 May 2001]

If you want a biography of Cole Porter you better go to the library, you won't find it here. This is a highly entertaining but strictly fictional version of his life--played by no less than Cary Grant, in his usual debonair style, perhaps just a shade understated so as to appear more like Porter. Whatever, he's still Cary Grant (playing himself in a minor key) and since the music is what makes this film tick, you'll forgive whatever liberties the scriptwriters have taken. It all looks wonderful in glowing technicolor.

Alexis Smith never was able to make a warm presence on the screen despite her talent and striking good looks. She seems even more remote here as the woman Porter woos and marries. Monty Woolley has a fine time playing himself. The musical moments are handled nicely by some talented people: Ginny Simms, Eve Arden, Jane Wyman and Mary Martin doing her "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" routine. All of the Porter standards are nicely done.

Interesting tidbit: Was Oscar nominated for "Best Scoring of a Musical" but lost to "The Jolson Story".

Relaxing entertainment. Just don't expect a truthful bio.

Porter!Grant!

[kenandraf · 7/10 · 5 July 2002]

Good musical that could have been even better if it had better editing.Starts slow and then builds momentum.The directing style was inconsistent where in there are scenes that are top quality and then there are scenes that are just done in a rushed and sloppy way which is weird because those bungled scenes are those that are easily done.Despite these faults,the MUSIC here to any big music fan will certainly encourage you to forgive and enjoy.Grant is very stiff here but this is due to his capturing Porter's mannerisms.The biography is toned down/adjusted to Porter's version for the mainstream audience,so if one really wishes to dig into his real life which is very x-rated stuff,read his bio books instead.The production of this film coupled with it's great music will be great for one who wants uncontroversial musical entertertainment.I love the 1940's color technique here too.Only for early 2oth century POP music fans and big fans of the lead actors......

My Heart Belongs To Cole

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 18 February 2007]

Unlike film biographies of George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Sigmund Romberg or for that matter Rodgers&Hart, those artists were gone by the time the silver screen told their stories. But Cole Porter was very much still with us when Night and Day was released in 1946 and some of his best work was yet to come.

If Cole Porter had his druthers Cary Grant would never have played the part of himself. Porter fancied himself as more the Fred Astaire type. But given the nature of what happened to Porter in his life, a dancing Cole Porter was out of the question.

There's not too much that's accurate in this film. Cole Porter was born and raised in Indiana in affluent surroundings. Yes he went to Yale and his best and lifelong friend that he acquired from Yale was Monty Woolley. Yes he did marry the older and glamorous Linda Lee Thomas. And yes he composed some of the most beautiful and sophisticated songs ever done.

Of course his marriage to Linda Lee was a sham. In the vernacular of the time Linda served as his beard, his cover as it were because Cole Porter was gay. As was his lifelong friend Monty Woolley.

Were they ever involved with each other. Maybe as youths, but from what I've heard their tastes were different. Porter liked his male partners as sophisticated as he was and as beautiful as his songs were. Monty on the other hand was known for picking up street kids from Maine to California until he died.

One thing that was true although glamorized for the film, Porter did serve in the French army during World War I. No wounds however, no hearing of African rhythms from Senegalese troops were he got the idea for Night and Day.

Night and Day sure jumbles up even the order of his shows. Porter was writing songs from before Yale, but he did not score a commercial musical comedy hit until the show Paris in 1928 where the song Let's Do It was featured. I sure didn't know that In the Still of the Night was originally done as a Christmas Carol way back in his youth for instance.

In fact Where the Still of the Night, along with I've Got You Under My Skin, Rosalie, and Easy to Love were all written for MGM musicals. You can take it to the bank that Louis B. Mayer soaked Jack Warner for plenty to get those songs heard in a Warner Brothers film. Similarly the title song Night and Day, heard in The Gay Divorce on Broadway first, made its screen debut in RKO's The Gay Divorcée. Jack Warner must have paid RKO plenty for that one also.

The other true thing is the fall from a horse that Porter suffered in the late thirties, the constant pain he was in all of his life. It took 28 operations to save his legs back in the thirties. In 1958 long after the story in the film ended, Porter did eventually lose a leg and from then on lived as a recluse in his suite at the Waldorf Towers. Linda Lee Thomas Porter had passed away about a decade before.

Alexis Smith plays Linda Lee here and the cast of Night and Day also includes Jane Wyman, Dorothy Malone, Selena Royle, Tom D'Andrea, Henry Stephenson, Donald Woods. Playing themselves are Mary Martin and Monty Woolley. Singer Ginny Simms of the Kay Kyser band sang many of the Porter tunes for the film.

Night and Day certainly captures Porter's sophistication. Of course the gay lifestyle and a pretty hedonistic one at that which Porter led would not be shown at all back in the days of the Code. Some might complain about that pleasure driven pursuit that Porter had his whole life. If he sought beauty and pleasure in the world, Cole Porter certainly gave enough of it back to the world to justify it.

After Night and Day, Cole Porter had still yet to write such film scores as The Pirate, High Society, and Les Girls and such Broadway shows as Kiss Me Kate, Out of this Wolrd, Can-Can, and Silk Stockings. You could score a film with just the material he had yet to write.

It's not a great biographical film, but Night and Day provides as good an excuse as any to listen and appreciate the art that was Cole Porter.

Hollywood's view of Cole Porter.

[michaelRokeefe · 6/10 · 24 December 2006]

This mid 40's musical is a fictional biography of one of America's most famous and prolific songwriters/composers, Cole Porter(Cary Grant). This is a showcase for just some of his classics that garnered accolades from millions, that even includes other gifted artists like Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and the Gershwins. The lovely Alexis Smith portrays Porter's wife Linda. And one of his best friends, Monty Woolley. Many of his standards are here: 'I Get A Kick Out of You', 'You're The Tops', 'In The Still of the Night', Anything Goes', 'Let's Do It' and of course, 'Night and Day'. Mary Martin cameos her polite striptease number. 'My Heart Belongs to Daddy'.

The legendary Michael Curtiz directs. Also featured in the cast: Dorothy Malone, Jane Wyman, Ginny Hill, Tom D'Andrea and Eve Arden.

Note: Being a lush Technicolor song and dance musical from a more innocent age; there is no hint of Porter's deep rooted homosexuality.

Good movie, accuracy aside.

[ndw · 7/10 · 6 March 2001]

If you are familiar with the life of Cole Porter, you soon become aware that this film, a fictional, musical biography, is heavy on the "fictional". It takes much greater license than "Rhapsody in Blue", a very good, similar genre film of the life of George Gershwin. On the other hand, it boasts a cast of characters who not only give good individual performances, but also interact very well together. Add to that a score that is a wonderfully performed cross section of those incomparable Cole Porter songs and what's not to like?

Fails even as fiction

[robb_772 · 2/10 · 29 September 2006]

This lavish but plodding showbiz biopic of songwriting legend Cole Porter forces Porter's life story into the typical glitzy Hollywood mode of the time period and never even attempts to provide any true insight into it's subject. The film has been considerably sanitized and whitewashed even beyond the norm that Hollywood was used to at the time. It is not surprising that no mention of Porter's homosexuality is made, but it is truly offensive that the filmmakers have the audacity to depict Porter as a wounded war veteran when he was never even in the military! It is almost as if director Michael Curtis and his team of writers have constructed a generic showbiz picture and grafted Porter's name and songs onto it as a marketing point.

The film should still have the potential to work as a fictionalized biography, however, if it was well-executed on its own terms, but, for the most part, it is not. The benign nature of the screenplay seems to confuse most of the actors, and the majority of the cast often seem indifferent or confused by the gutted characters they are portraying. Not unexpectedly, the film's biggest asset is Cary Grant, who is a somewhat surprisingly adept choice to play the film's idealized version of Porter. Grant's immense talent and innate charisma can go a long way to salvage even some of the worst films, but he is given so little to work with here that he eventually disappears into the bland void with everything else.

Even the music – the one thing that could have saved the film – is handled badly, with too many songs performed in generic arrangements and sung by tone deaf actors. Sadly, Monty Woolley, playing himself, is the worst offender in this regard, although Ginny Simms also sings far too many songs in an atrocious faux-opera style that really grates my nerves. Inexplicably, even when a number sonically works (as in Mary Martin's fabled rendition of "My Heart Belongs to Daddy") the staging and editing often undermine it. Nearly all of the musical numbers are flatly filmed with garish costumes and set design and further hampered with awkward choreography.

Of note, this was Cary Grant's first film to be shot in Technicolor, and the actor photographed just as beautifully in color (if not more so) than he had in black-and-white (not all early movie stars would be so lucky). The film also has very impressive production values that strongly invoke the proper time and period. I wish that such time and attention were still lavished upon films today. Actually, I wish such time and attention had been lavished upon a better film in 1946!

See it for the music

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 16 March 2009]

Cary Grant plays Cole Porter in "Night and Day," a biography of sorts of the great composer and lyricist. Alexis Smith plays his wife Linda, Monty Woolley plays his best friend, as he was in real life, and performers include Ginny Simms, Jane Wyman, Mary Martin and Eve Arden.

Most of this biography is pure fiction, except for a few details. Porter was indeed injured while riding and endured something like 30 operations. I don't believe he and Linda ever separated, and by all accounts were quite devoted, despite Porter's same sex dalliances. His family did want him to be a lawyer, and he did drop out of law school. He apparently did serve in the French Foreign Legion during World War I.

However, the important part of this movie is Porter's gorgeous music, which shines throughout. Certainly he wrote some of the most beautiful music and lyrics ever, including the title song, "I Get a Kick Out of You," "Begin the Beguine," "Let's Face the Music and Dance," and countless others.

This is an unusual film for Cary Grant. It calls on his class and sophistication, but not the humor he brought to a role. He looks very handsome and is very convincing with the piano fingerings. He does a little singing, surprisingly, and his voice was pleasant, with a fast tremelo. Alexis Smith is stunningly beautiful and elegant as Linda. Both roles are somewhat wooden, just a backdrop really for the singing and dancing.

"Night and Day" doesn't have a great script, but it's definitely worth seeing for the music and musical performances, particularly by the silky-voiced Ginny Simms, Mary Martin doing her breakout number, "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," and Eve Arden as a French entertainer.

Perfume from Spain?

[jbacks3 · 4/10 · 14 November 2006]

I really have a lot of trouble with this. Okay, I understand it's 1946 and you can't have Cole Porter chasing chorus boys and dishing the dirt on his sexless marriage and increasingly frustrated wife. Co-starring uber gay Monty Wooley (Porter's close friend in real life) strangely cast as his himself but as teacher from Yale (they were classmates) and takes the convenient plot cop out by blaming his wife Linda's marital frustrations on his career demands. More factual issues: Porter wasn't in the Army during WWI and certainly wasn't wounded. He didn't suffer his horse riding accident in a storm (it happened during a break from re-working the flop Broadway musical "You Never Know" in 1937, and his grandfather wasn't dying). Also, while there's some attention to period detail given to the cars, anachronisms abound in the post WW2 song arrangements, dress (okay most of it) and hair styles. Scenes are disjointed and anyone knowing even the superficial facts about Porter's life would find the whole production laughable. Cary Grant playing Cole Porter is like James Caan playing Billy Rose. Oooh, that one didn't work either. Porter, flawed as he was, deserved a less flawed bio-pic. The strange thing was that Porter liked it!

Skip Delovely and Catch this One again

[bobilene · 8/10 · 9 February 2005]

After suffering through "Delovely", I had to feel good again about Cole Porter's music. Where Delovely focuses on Porters Homosexuality, a subject that Night and day ignores, Night and day performs his music in brilliant fashion. Forget the corny fictionalized screenplay and just sit back and enjoy:

Mary Martins version of My Heart Belongs to Daddy.

Cary Grant singing "Your The Tops".

Cole Porter's stirring "Night and Day", "Begin the Beguine". A song that Delovely totally butchers.

"It was Just One of Those Things" The Haunting "In the Still of the Night"

And so many more.

This is strictly for Cole Porter's music. If your interested in how he enjoyed his spare time, Delovey is for you. For me, I just enjoy his music.

A celebration of Porter's music.

[lastliberal · 6/10 · 5 February 2008]

Those looking for a biopic of Cole Porter would be better served elsewhere. This is the 1946 version of his life and it leaves out a lot of truth and stylizes the rest. The ending of the film gives those in the know a clue. When his wife (Alexis Smith) runs into his arms all excited, the camera shows that he isn't really as glad to see her as she is to see him. Maybe, that is because she left him, not for being a workaholic and ignoring her, as the movie suggests, but because his homosexuality was becoming more open in Hollywood.

But, despite the glossy image of Porter, it was still a worthwhile film and it did get an Oscar nomination for the music, which should be no surprise to anyone. Porter's music is some of the best written and performed in the country and there are almost twenty of his songs featured in the film, some sung by Jane Wyman, the only Oscar winner that was the wife of a future president.

Cary Grant is magnificent as Cole Porter. He makes the film worth viewing for his presence alone.

The worst musical biography of all time?

[funkyfry · 2/10 · 8 September 2003]

For all the warnings I had received in print about the low quality and box office performance of this film, I decided to give it a try based on the strength of Grant's persona and acting and Cole Porter's wonderful songs. However, this film disappointed even me going into it with low expectations -- possibly, it's even worse than MGM's "Till the Clouds Roll By" because at least in that film they had decent musical performances. The only original performer in sight (other than Monty Woolley) is Mary Martin, and she's dancing with eskimos for some reason (weren't they Siberian gentlemen?).

It's to be expected that Hollywood biopics will pick and choose facts for presentation, but this movie actually perverts circumstances (who believes Cole Porter was injured in WWI? That he actually touched a gun? Not me) and personalities (Linda Lee was a very wealthy woman when Porter met her in Europe). Smith's performance carries with it no conviction, and we can't really sympathize with her anyway -- why would Linda have married a musician if she hated theatrical people? Why would Monty Woolley be beloved but the rest shunned?

Worst of all is the poor treatment all the songs receive. They actually look like WB shorts, not sweeping musical revue numbers. The sense of historical authenticity (even if for the sake of nostalgia) is completely missing.

A very poor effort.

Cary Grant in the life story of Cole Porter.

[TxMike · 18 January 2004]

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).'

A good, but not great, biopic

[rdfarnham · 7/10 · 29 July 2005]

The movie is enjoyable for the music though the facts of Porter's life are fictionalized heavily. For one thing, though Porter is shown as something of a ladies man, he was actually gay. Knowing the moral climate of the time (1946) it is understandable that they would downplay this aspect of his life. While this doesn't spoil the picture, it does take away a little of the believability. According to legend Porter actually requested that Cary Grant play him in the movie. Grant seems somewhat preoccupied and his acting is not up to his usual standard. Jane Wyman turns out to be a very good singer and a decent dancer, but the highlights are provided by Ginny Simms and Mary Martin. The idea of having Monty Woolley and Mary Martin portray themselves was interesting. Not the greatest biopic, ever made, but well worth watching.

Underrated Musical From The Dream Factory, Colorful and Well-Paced

[museumofdave · 7/10 · 11 March 2013]

Hollywood in the so-called "Golden Age" of the 1930's and 40's was "The Land of Let's Pretend," and few films were expected to deal with hard truths, most especially musicals. Assuming that no one in 1946 expected to see a film revealing details of Cole Porter's private life, it's difficult to ascertain why Night and Day has had a bad rap for many years--it's dazzlingly colorful, loaded with dozens of Cole Porter songs, many, like Mary Martin's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," and Monty Wooley's "Miss Otis Regrets" near definitive, not too far removed from the Broadway versions.

Cole Porter himself, on whose life this lavish Warners musical has been very loosely based, was said to be, at least publicly, delighted, as not only were his compositions heard in lavish orchestrations, but he was played by Cary Grant--and what could be better? Even the recent Porter biopic De-Lovely only skirts the truth of Porter's problem life, and awkwardly updates arrangements for today's young film-goer, but this pleasantly-paced version is fun and well-paced.

Director Michael Curtiz (of Casablanca and Yankee Doodle Dandy fame) knows exactly how to keep the energy in a biopic alive--compare this zippy musical with MGM's elephantine Till The Clouds Roll By, made the same year, which tediously attempts to make Jerome Kern's life of some interest: the lavish musical numbers are fine, but the life story grim, Robert Walker in a weak-tea performance, barely of interest as Kern. In this one, Grant (even when at 40 he's playing a college student) is charmingly cool and magnetic. Here's to The Dream Factory--and to all those memorable tunes!

If you think a biopic of Cole Porter can't miss, you under estimate Hollywood

[FISHCAKE · 7/10 · 15 November 1999]

You might think that, with 27 of Cole Porter's songs to exploit and a large cast of top-flight singers and dancers to present them, Hollywood couldn't possibly miss. You just don't know Hollywood. This purported biography of the composer-lyricist responsible for possibly the best popular music of the 20th century sinks to a level of mediocrity, so far as the "dramatic" material is concerned, rarely equaled in the long history of bad films about real people. The music comes off great, no question, and the best way to enjoy this movie on tape is to remaster it, keeping only the music and dance. Some real facts about Porter are treated, sort of: (1) he really had a wealthy family, but the grandfather was a very lucky speculator, not a legal light; (2) he really did go to Yale, but also to Harvard, which is not mentioned; (3) his first broadway musical was a failure, but probably not because of Lusitania; (4) he went to North Africa shortly afterward to entertain troops there and served in the U.S.armed forces in 1917, 1918 (references say nothing about the French army or a wound); (5) he did marry in 1931; and (6) he was injured in a horseback accident in 1937. Cary Grant looks very uncomfortable in the role, handling his scenes with Alexis Smith as if she was a carrier of the Eboli virus! Cole Porter is said to have "loved it", as well he might, remembering the royalties on those 27 all-time hits of his that are showcased. I rate this a "7" solely on the basis of the music.

Living a lie

[jotix100 · 7/10 · 2 July 2004]

I had seen this film years ago, but barely remembered it. The only thing that impressed me then was how vivid the Technicolor looked. Well, in this version that was shown by TMC, the colors had faded, to the point that, at times, it had the 'look' of a recolored picture.

Whatever possessed Michael Curtiz to direct this film is beyond imagination. Maybe it was in his contract, because otherwise it made no sense, as it broke no ground. At times, the impression we get it that we're watching the type of videos that some studios made from popular songs.

The film asks a lot from us. First of all, Cary Grant never ages! We see him as a student at Yale in his early twenties. Later on, at the height of his popularity, he still hasn't changed at all. We get hints about his being gay by the way he plants a couple of chaste kisses on Jane Wyman's nose. In the scenes with Alexis Smith, Cary tends to give her pecks in the cheek; Cole never knew the art of French kissing, even though being such a Francophile.

The film is not terrible, only that it stretches the facts for its own benefit. Of course, Hollywood of that era wouldn't touch any risky subject with a mile long pole. After watching this film, anyone will be confused as to who Cole Porter was. Cary Grant is a bit stiff playing Cole, maybe because of the direction? Alexis Smith was a gorgeous woman. This must have been one of her earlier films and it shows.

The singing was excellent. Ginny Simms passes for Ethel Merman, the original performer in a few Cole Porter musicals. Ms Simms cuts quite a figure and she is an asset, but Hollywood wouldn't give credit to the talented Merman, who could belt a song better than anyone around. Monty Woolley, playing himself, comes out better. Jane Wyman is a welcome addition to the film. Mary Martin was delightful as herself. Also Eve Arden makes us like her Gabrielle.

Perhaps we have to wait for the new film with Kevin Kline on the subject and compare it with this one.

Colorful musical about the life and work of "Cole Porter".

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 1 September 2007]

Warner Brothers must have pumped a lot of cash into this production. It's splashy, moves quickly, and has beaucoup musical numbers. I wish it had somehow all paid off.

Cary Grant was at his peak here in 1946, but he looks too old to be a Yalie. He doesn't look OLD. He never looked old, even when he was old, just as he never looked boyish. He seemed to just reach middle adulthood and stay there for fifty years.

That wouldn't necessarily be a problem but he's not only the central figure but he's in every scene except the musical numbers, and he's in some of them too with his faux tenor, his vibrato making the walls tremble. Nobody else is of much significance. Monty Wooley should be funny, and perhaps he was in 1946, when beards were oddities. Alexis Smith looks glorious in glorious Technicolor.

The film itself is almost a musical review, with episodes from somebody's fantasy of Cole Porter's escapades stuck in between. It's kind of an interesting problem. Porter wrote both music and lyrics, and some of them are playful ("You're the Top") and others blue-hued in their melancholy ("In the Still of the Night"). So why doesn't it play? What's the difference between this and, say, "Singin' in the Rain," given that this film has a more dramatic element. For one thing, there's no dancing to speak of here. One number, "I've Got You Under My Skin" is clumsily choreographed, the dancer seeming to practice her yoga mudrahs, a kind of manual of hands. It's okay when a musical lacks believability. Who believed any of Fred and Ginger's plots? What it lacks is exuberance.

Porter's involvement in World War I (that's 1914 to 1918, kids) is romanticized. He gets the idea of "Begin the Beguine" from listening to shell bursts or something -- well, listening to what appear to be Morroccan troops humming in the gloomy night like darkies anyway. Somehow the film links his later, disabling riding accident to his wounds in the war and presents it in the most sentimentalized of ways. I mean, the guy is like FDR struggling to the stage to make his first speech. His homosexuality of course isn't even hinted at. But the writing is pretty careless throughout. The audience loses track of what the year is or what the name of the play is.

Well, not to put the production down too much. The songs we hear are Porter's most popular and sophisticated, and they're popular for good reason. Porter was one of a dozen or so marvelous composers and lyricists who made the American stage blossom in the 30 years from 1925 to 1955. What a gang! Irving Berlin, another outstanding composer/lyricist of the period, couldn't even read music or play the piano except in one key! The music alone makes the movie worth watching once. Will someone explain to me what's happened to American vernacular music?

Early, highly sanitized fictional biopic of Cole Porter

[SimonJack · 6/10 · 5 June 2022]

Cole Porter was very much alive and apparently approved of this film, "Night and Day," in 1946. It is a highly fictional and greatly romanticized film about his life up until the mid-1940s. And, what prominent entertainer wouldn't want Cary Grant to portray him in his life's story? Why not one of the handsomest, popular and well-liked actors and leading men of the day? Well, that was Grant, but it certainly wasn't Cole Porter. Porter didn't have the looks and handsome appearance of Grant. But he had personality and flair, and drew crowds of entertainers - the "in" people of the professions and trade. These he invited to join him in his constant partying and living it up.

Some news coverage at the time this film came out noted that Porter hadn't said much about the film but was glad that it was being made. More than one critic commented that he was always front and center for all of his staged shows, and that he enjoyed the limelight and attention. Even in the 2004 biopic that delved more into his personal life after college, his character makes reference to the 1946 film and just says that his friends would find that film hard to believe.

Porter's story is not one of a struggling musician who makes good. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, never wanted for money or the things it could buy, and he attended Yale University. But talent knows no class, or race, or sex, or even character. And Cole Porter was loaded with talent. He clearly was a musical genius. And one of the greatest among American musicians - composers and songwriters.

Over five decades, Porter wrote the lyrics and music of more than 200 songs. Many of them became hits. He wrote and composed the music for six college musicals while at Yale University, in 1911 to 1914; and then composed and wrote 28 stage musicals, seven film musicals and one TV musical. Several of his most popular tunes are still heard in movies and sung and played by bands and groups well into the 21st century. Among those are "Night and Day" of 1932, "Anything Goes" and "I Get a Kick Out of You" of 1934, "Begin the Beguine" of 1935, and "So in Love" of 1948.

A very good cast joined Cary Grant in the making of this highly sanitized and romanticized biopic of Porter. He was just 55 years old when it was made and some of his best musicals were to be over the next few years. The smash hit, "So in Love" isn't in this film because he didn't write it until 1948.

While this film doesn't delve into Porter's life, with his bisexual relationship with Linda Thomas and his homosexual affairs, it does give a good snapshot of his college days at Yale from 1911-1914. That's where his musical talent came to the fore, and he became a lifelong friend of Monty Woolley. Woolley, although obviously older than he had been at the time, plays the part of himself from those Yale years through the time the film was made. The later, more penetrating biopic on Cole Porter's life - "De-Lovely" of 2004, didn't cover Porter's breakout years. So, the role of Monty Woolley was greatly reduced in that film.

The cast all do a good job in this film, and how could anyone not be entertained with the playing and singing it has of Cole Porter tunes?

A talent-filled failure

[richard-1787 · 3/10 · 20 January 2009]

This is a very strange, very disappointing movie. No, not because it strays so far from the actual facts of Porter's biography; lots of biops, especially older ones, do that.

This movie is strange because it featured so much talent with so little result.

Michael Curtiz is one of my all-time favorite directors, having given us some of the greatest, most thoroughly engaging of all American movies: Casablanca, of course, but also Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Sea Hawk, and many more. They are movies of great passion without a dead minute.

And yet, apart from some well-staged musical numbers, Night and Day is nothing BUT dead minutes. The episodic nature of the script doesn't help any; characters (especially women) appear and then vanish. But primarily, there is NO chemistry between Cary Grant/Cole Porter and any of the women in this movie.

Was it because Grant and Curtiz knew that Porter was gay and were trying to suggest that despite the script? Somehow, I doubt it. Monty Woolly shows far more feeling for Porter - whom he knew in real life, of course - than Grant/Porter ever shows for any of the women in this picture. In the last shot, when Alexis Smith (Porter's wife) embraces Grant, his face still shows no real love, much less passion, for her. It is a very strange performance from a very great actor who was certainly quite capable of making sparks fly with women on the screen.

In the end, I couldn't help but feel that the only convincing relationship in the movie was the one between Porter and Woolly, largely because of Woolly's acting, even though that is the part of Porter's biography that the movie was at least ostensibly trying to suppress.

The rest of the movie is pretty flat as well. Cole had no real hardships on the road to success, other than his ill health, so there is not much to develop into drama. There are the clichéd "inspiration" scenes: Porter finds the lyrics to "Night and Day" one rainy night when a grandfather clock ticks and rain drops against a window outside, etc.

If you like Porter's music, there are some well-staged numbers - though what should have been one of the best, Mary Martin's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," with which she had such a great success on Broadway, somehow comes off flat. Woolly is good doing "Miss Otis sends her regrets," though it could have been staged better.

If you're looking to learn about Cole Porter, this is not for you.

But if you're looking for an engaging even if fictional story with interesting characters and engaging interaction, this really isn't for you either.

What a shame all that talent went for so little.

Glamor and Drama in a Gorgeous Film

[Jeanne_de_M · 10/10 · 11 November 2005]

This is a beautiful, entertaining film with clever dialogue and a bit of drama. Though Cole Porter himself said that there was little reality in it, his professional career was featured here in a most winning fashion, with both negative and positive elements of it featured fairly. It is appropriate that the film concentrated upon the career rather than the seedier side of the protagonist's private life. It is all too common these days to have to suffer through presumptuous exposés of the most-private affairs of famous people who are no longer with us. At least this film was produced while its subject was alive. The Irwin Winkler "remake" or retelling, "Delovely", was nothing but an outrageous, shallow outing that concentrated on negativity, while subjecting us to the most boring, flaccid dialogue ever--ironic, I think, for a story about one of the most clever American lyricists of the twentieth century! The 2004 outing starring Kevin Kline also featured some hideous modern renditions of Cole Porter's music that did no justice to the genius of the composer. Movies can accentuate the positive while minimizing the negative and still have value. This is one of the most visually appealing films I have ever seen, but it has moments of disturbing realism as well as glamor. The rigors of life as a prolific artist, as well as the trials of an artist's spouse are portrayed with an adequate degree of grim reality. It does not so much ignore the homosexual activities of the subject as it does allude to them very delicately, and that is all that is required if one has good taste and an active imagination. I'll take an original over a remake any day, and this production, co-starring the hilarious Monty Woolley and the lovely Alexis Smith as Linda Lee Porter, is a good example of that preference.

Miss Otis Regrets

[zoshchenko · 7/10 · 13 September 2023]

Whenever this comes on I always look for the scene in the theatrical producers office where Monty Wooley sings "Miss Otis Regrets." It comes on at about the 49 minute mark and runs for about five minutes. The highlight of the movie! The rest of it is rather bland and not terribly interesting, and I am a big Cary Grant fan. But be sure to catch this scene, and the bit of dialog afterwards where the producers discuss how they decide if a song is going to be a hit. I wish we could have seen the play where Monty Wooley plays a Russian general with his natural whiskers! You can find the song on YouTube but not the whole scene.

Dead Of Night

[irajoelirajoel · 1/10 · 10 November 2007]

I remember seeing this silly bio. of the great Cole Porter on our small black and white TV when I was a kid and not liking it much. Now years later a pristine DVD of the film is now available and I still do not like it. Actually I hated it. Of course the no.1 reason for my disliking it is the total fantasy that Warner Bros. came up with as "the life of Cole Porter." The cast tries hard but everything is so wrong about this film that I sat there shaking my head. Maybe in 1946 movie audiences were more accepting of this kind of crap, but come on Cary Grant as Cole Porter?? Of course all the gay stuff hangs over this movie big time. Porter was gay, Grant was gay Monty Wooley was gay, and from what I've heard Alexis Smith was a closet Lesbian. They must have had a hoot making this one. Needless to say the period costumes, decor etc are all wrong and Porter's great music deserved better singers than Ginny Simms or Jane Wyman. The only nice moment for me was Mary Martin (another closet Lesbian) doing My Heart Belongs To Daddy. This movie really needed Ethel Merman (another bi lady) to give this 500pd Easter Egg some life. Unfortunately the more recent movie bio De-Lovely or De Lousy isn't much better. A shame because Porter was one of the great composers of the Broadway Stage.