EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT NIGHT

Everything Happens at Night
20th Century-Fox, 1939, B/W, 77min, ***
Released December, 1939

A different sort of film for Sonja - a comedy / suspense film about two newspaper reporters (Millan and Cummings) vying for the scoop of the year. Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Hugo Norden (Maurice Moskovich), who was thought to have been assassinated a year previously, is now thought to be living and hiding in the mountains of Switzerland. The reporters are sent by their respective newspapers to a small village, where they end up sharing the same hotel room and falling in love with the same girl (Sonja, of course). It turns out that Sonja is Dr. Norden's daughter, and in the process of getting the "big scoop," the reporters blow his cover and he has to sneak out of the country and travel to America. Light comedy and suspense. Sonja has only one skating number, but it's a nice one. Definitely not a musical, but I've included it for completeness in covering Sonja's skating numbers.

In Charge of Production: Darryl F. Zanuck
Associate Producer: Harry Joe Brown
Directed by: Irving Cummings
Original Screen Play by: Art Arthur and Robert Harari
Musical Direction: Cyril J. Mockridge
Skating Numbers Staged by: Nick Castle
Art Direction: Richard Day, Albert Hogsett
Set Decorations: Thomas Little
Costumes: Royer
Sound: Eugene Grossman, Roger Heman
Director of Photography: Edward Cronjager
Film Editor: Walter Thompson

Cast: Sonja Henie [Louise], Ray Milland [Geoffrey Thompson], Robert Cummings [Ken Morgan], Maurice Moskovich [Dr. Hugo Norden], Leonid Kinskey [Groder], Alan Dinehart [Fred Sherwood], Fritz Feld [Gendarme], Jody Gilbert [Hilda], Victor Varconi [Cavas], William Edmunds [Hotel Clerk], George Davis [Bellhop], Paul Porcasi [Bartender], Michael Visaroff [Woodcutter], Eleanor Wesselhoeft [Woodcutter's Wife], Christian Rub [Telegrapher], Ferdinand Munier [Conductor], Holmes Herbert [Featherstone], Rolfe Sedan [Waiter], Frank Reicher [Pharmacist], John Bleifer [Sled Driver]

Musical Program: [0:20] Woodpecker Polka (?) (danced by Sonja Henie with Ray Milland and Bob Cummings with Jody Gilbert); [0:30] Woodpecker Polka (?) (skated by Robert Cummings, then by Sonja Henie at the Ice Sports Contest, reprised in background score throughout movie); [0:33] Blue Danube (standard arrangement and jazzy arangement played by Ochestra with Choral effects, skated by Sonja Henie)