Midnight (DVD)

SCrewball comedy doesn’t get any more effortlessly elegant and gleefully irreverent than this roulette wheel of romantic deception, gleaming with cunning wit and Continental élan. A couture-clad Claudette Colbert is divine as a penniless American showgirl who crashes Parisian high society by posing as a wealthy Hungarian baroness—but both a scheming nobleman (John Barrymore) and a smitten taxi driver (Don Ameche) are soon on to her game. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett’s sophisticated script—a typically subversive blend of fairy-tale escapism and caustic social observation—and the pitch-perfect direction of master craftsman Mitchell Leisen yield a topsy-turvy Cinderella story with a cynical bite.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• New audio commentary featuring author and film critic Michael Koresky
• New program featuring audio excerpts of a 1969 interview with director Mitchell Leisen
• Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1940
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by film critic David Cairns