There have been many variations on the Cinderella story in American cinema over the years, and it's easy to understand why. There's no better way to ensure a healthy amount of box office success than to pluck a beautiful girl out of her drab surroundings and put her amongst the well to do. It's rife with comic possibilities and romantic, happy endings.

Such is the case with Midnight, a classic screwball comedy from 1939 cooked up by screenwriters Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. The story centers on Eve Peabody, a down-on-her-luck showgirl (played by Claudette Colbert) who at the beginning of the story is deposited from a train in Paris without a cent. She happens into the life of a cab driver (Don Ameche) that agrees to shuttle her around the city in hopes of finding work. An independent woman to the end, she slips away and sneaks into a fancy dinner party, where to avoid detection she plays herself off as a Hungarian countess.

The rest of the story is, in all honesty, too full of twists and turns to really recount here, but rest assured that it is very easy to follow and a heck of a lot of fun to watch. The perfect casting of Colbert and Ameche as well as the redoubtable comic skills of John Barrymore make for a snappy and charming film that has been tucked away in the Universal archives for far too long.