Remember the Night

Remember the Night follows Lee Leander, a shoplifter arrested shortly before Christmas on what is treated as her third offense. The assistant district attorney handling her case, John Sargent, asks that the trial be postponed rather than brought before a jury during the holidays. Taking pity on her, he arranges bail so she will not spend Christmas behind bars, and ends up bringing her along to his mother's home in the country. There, surrounded by a warm family very different from her own background, the two grow close and fall in love, which leaves them facing an awkward question: how should they conduct themselves when the case returns to court?

Mitchell Leisen directed the film, which was written by Preston Sturges and produced by Leisen and Albert Lewis for Paramount. It sits between Leisen's Midnight (1939) and Kitty (1945) in his filmography. Barbara Stanwyck plays Lee, with Fred MacMurray as John Sargent, Beulah Bondi as Mrs. Sargent, Elizabeth Patterson as Aunt Emma, Willard Robertson as Francis X. O'Leary and Sterling Holloway as Willie Simms. The credited cast runs to 56 names.

On IMDb the film holds 7.5/10 from around 8,300 votes, and on TMDB 7.3/10 from roughly 129 votes. A critics' rating of 8.6/10 from 13 reviews places it well above those audience scores.