History is Made at Night (1937) - Frank Borzage

History is Made At Night starts off in a very similar fashion to lots of romantic comedies, but quickly transforms itself into a more dramatic film which really affected me strongly on an emotional level.  I was really impressed with just how well the film balances the dramatic and comedic elements throughout keeping a very concise, yet rather unique tone to it all.  When it's comedic, it's charming and fun (the hand puppet sequence, the comedic moments involving the chef, etc) but when we are shown the more dramatic elements involving Irene being caught in-between the man she loves and her mean-spirited husband who would rather kill her than have her leave him, it's all very resonant.  In the hands of a less skilled story teller the character of Bruce Vail, her husband, could have come off as too much of an abusive husband archetype, but the film ultimately shows that Vail was a man that truly loves his wife, just never quite knowing how to deal with losing her in a sane way.   The last twenty minutes or so of this film are pretty much perfect.   The way that Frank Borzage uses the ship's fog horn to create an impending sense of dread is really exceptional, as it's the one constant sound in the background during the scenes leading up to the accident.  The sequence towards the very end between our doomed lovers (so, I assumed while watching) is so poetic and beautiful that even when the film kinda throws a random and unnecessary 180, It didn't even bother me at all. 

9/10

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