Night and Day (1946)
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46% of users liked it
(2,261 ratings)
Faced with the challenge of writing a screenplay based on the life of fabulously wealthy, fabulously successful composer Cole Porter, one Hollywood wag came up with a potential story angle: "How does the S.O.B. make his second million dollars?" By the time the Porter biopic Night and Day… More Faced with the challenge of writing a screenplay based on the life of fabulously wealthy, fabulously successful composer Cole Porter, one Hollywood wag came up with a potential story angle: "How does the S.O.B. make his second million dollars?" By the time the Porter biopic Night and Day was released, the three-person scriptwriting team still hadn't come up with a compelling storyline, though the film had the decided advantages of star Cary Grant and all that great Porter music. Roughly covering the years 1912 to 1946, the story begins during Porter's undergraduate days at Yale University, where he participated in amateur theatricals under the tutelage of waspish professor Monty Woolley (who plays himself). Though Porter's inherited wealth could have kept him out of WWI, he insists upon signing up as an ambulance driver. While serving in France, he meets nurse Linda Lee (Alexis Smith), who will later become his wife. Focusing his attentions on Broadway and the London stage in the postwar years, Porter pens an unbroken string of hit songs, including "Just One of Those Things," "You're the Top," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "Begin the Beguine," and the title number. The composition of this last-named song is one of the film's giddy highlights, as Porter, inspired by the "drip drip drip" of an outsized rainstorm, runs to the piano and cries "I think I've got it!" The film's dramatic conflict arises when Porter is crippled for life in a polo accident. Refusing to have his legs amputated, he makes an inspiring comeback, even prompting a WWI amputee to remark upon his courage! Corny and unreliable as biography, Night and Day is redeemed by the guest appearances of musical luminaries Mary Martin (doing a spirited if disappointingly demure version of her striptease number "My Heart Belongs to Daddy") and Ginny Simms, the latter cast as an ersatz Ethel Merman named Carole Hill. Jane Wyman, seen as Porter's pre-nuptial sweetheart Gracie Harris, also gets to sing and dance, and quite well indeed. Beset with production problems, not least of which was the ongoing animosity between star Grant and director Michael Curtiz, Night and Day managed to finish filming on schedule, and proved to be an audience favorite -- except for those "in the know" Broadwayites who were bemused over the fact that Cole Porter's well-known homosexuality was necessarily weaned from the screenplay. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Directed By
- Michael Curtiz
- Written By
- Charles Hoffman, Leo Townsend
- Genres
- Drama, Musical & Performing Arts, Classics
- In Theaters
- Aug 3, 1946 Wide
- Studio
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Critic Reviews
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Douglas Pratt, DVDLaser
a notorious example of the fantasizing Hollywood freely dealt to contemporary reality, but its strength comes from the use of close to two dozen Porter songs, so that the narrative, in which Porter is always too busy with his next Broadway show to spend q
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Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Laughably sanitized biopic.
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Cast
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John Alvin
as Petey
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Cary Grant
as Cole Porter
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Alexis Smith
as Linda Lee Porter
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Eve Arden
as Gabrielle
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Monty Woolley
as Himself
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Herman Bing
as "Peaches"
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Jane Wyman
as Gracie Harris
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Paul Cavanagh
as Bart McClelland
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Tom D'Andrea
as Bernie
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Dorothy Malone
as Nancy
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Mary Martin
as Herself
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Victor Francen
as Anatole Giron
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Howard Freeman
as Producer
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Alan Hale
as Leon Dowling
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Milada Mladova
as Specialty dancer
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Clarence Muse
as Porter
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Carlos Ramirez
as Specialty singer
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George Riley
as O'Halloran
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Selena Royle
as Kate Porter
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Sig Rumann
as Willowsky
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Ginny Simms
as Carole Hill
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Henry Stephenson
as Omar Cole
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Bobby Watson
as Director
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Donald Woods
as Ward Blackburn
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George Zoritch
as Specialty dancer
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Lynne Baggett
as Sexboat
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Edward Biby
as Surgeon
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George Boyce
as Stage Manager
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Harlan Briggs
as Doorman
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Peter Camlin
as French Lieutenant
- Hobart Cavanaugh
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Chester Clute
as Music Publisher
- John Compton
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Joyce Compton
as Chorine
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Harry Crocker
as Newspaperman
- Frank Dae
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Boyd Davis
as Dean
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Fern Emmett
as Secretary
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Herbert Evans
as Bobby
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Frank Ferguson
as Tina's father
- Sam Flint
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Gene Garrick
as Soldier
- Lisa Golm
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Buddy Gorman
as English Page Boy
- Creighton Hale
- Edna M. Harris
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Hans Herbert
as Headwaiter
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Rune Hultman
as American Lieutenant
- Boyd Irwin
- Gladden James
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Eddie Kane
as Headwaiter
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Colin Kenny
as Doorman
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George Kirby
as Cab Driver
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Joe Kirkwood Jr.
as Classmate
- Ellen Lowe
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Frank Marlowe
as Army Driver
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Jo Ann Marlowe
as Tina
- Tom McGuire
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Bob McKenzie
as Hansom Cab Driver
- Claire Meade
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George Meader
as Minister
- Bert Moorhouse
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Jack Mower
as Livery Chauffeur
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Gregory Muradian
as Small Caroler
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George Nokes
as Wayne Blackburn Child
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Vivien Oakland
as Married Couple
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Garry Owen
as Bartender
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Albert Petit
as French Waiter
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Gordon Richards
as Coachman
- Jack Richardson
- Cyril Ring
- Marshall Ruth
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Virginia Sale
as Minister's Wife
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Fred Santley
as Yale Alumni
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Scott Wallace
as Chauffeur
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Almira Sessions
as Couple in Hospital Corridor
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Harry Seymour
as Piano Player
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Nick Stewart [Nicodemus]
as Waiter
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Laura Treadwell
as Woman in Theater
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Elizabeth Valentine
as Matron in Hospital
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Philip Van Zandt
as Librettist
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John Vosper
as Man
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Regina Wallace
as Tina's mother
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Crane Whitley
as Commercial Artist
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Eric Wilton
as English Officer
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Joan Winfield
as Nurse
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Richard Erdman
as Customer
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Edward Kelly
as Callboy
- John Miles
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Charles Williams
as Customer
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Rebel Randall
as Chorus girl
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John W. Goldsworthy
as Yale Gentleman
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Richard Bartell
as Photographer
- Maurice Brierre
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Henri DeSoto
as Waiter
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Rudy Friml
as Orchestra Leader
- Michael Lally
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Mayo Newhall
as Bearded Man
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Harold De Becker
as English Workman
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Robert Arthur
as Customer
- Edgar Caldwell
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Bernard DeRoux
as Assistant to Giron
- Dick Earle
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Ernest Golm
as Foreign Couple
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Paul Gustine
as Men in Theater
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J.W. Johnston
as Doctor
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Marie Melesch
as Scrub Woman
- Helen O'Hara
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Helen Pender
as Pretty Nurse
- Dorothy Reisner
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Susanne Rosser
as Chorine
- George Suzanne
- George Volk
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Pat Gleason
as Dance Director
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Charles Miller
as Professor
