One of my favorite films from 1937 is the comedy / drama / romance/ adventure History is Made a Night, with Charles Boyer and the incomparable Jean Arthur.  It’s a movie that cannot easily be pigeonholed because it does so many things, and does them well.

Lovely Irene Vail (Jean Arthur) no longer loves rich husband Bruce (Colin Clive, just as obsessed here with her as he was with creating life from death as the made scientist in the Frankenstein films), so she runs away to London and then Paris for a divorce.  While waiting for the British decree to become final she meets a charming man who rescues her virtue and during the span of one fateful night wins her heart. Paul Dumond (Charles Boyer) is France’s foremost headwaiter, but he relinquishes his post in order to come to America and find Arthur when she sails home under mysterious circumstances.

They are brought together again by chance, only to have their relationship threatened a second time by the convergence of her husband’s jealous stupidity and an iceberg.

If this sounds like James Cameron’s Titanic (1997), that’s because History is Made at Night could have been a template for Cameron’s adventure, particularly in its sharp focus on the people with huge personal upheavals who suddenly find themselves at risk in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The film boasts a lucid, adult script, superb cinematography, a great special effects climax and, of course, palpable chemistry between Boyer — considered to be the epitome of a Continental lover — and Arthur.  Leo Carrillo, best known as Pancho in the Cisco Kid movies and television series, is memorable as the great French chef Cesare, who accompanies his best friend Paul to America and back again as Paul pursues true love.  Thankfully, Paul and Irene find it with each other.

My rating:  ✰ ✰ ✰ ½.  (7:2).