For my money, Claudette Colbert is the greatest female comedy actor in films. Midnight is mainly a vehicle for her comic élan, and flair for suggesting a little more than she says. She's an American showgirl in who arrives in Paris in the rain wearing just a fabulous gold evening dress but with no luggage or money.
She is picked up by Don Ameche, a taxi driver of limited means, but soon enough is pretending to be the wife of a Hungarian aristocrat... for complicated reasons.... It's the Cinderella story. The charade will end at midnight. Will she be uncovered as penniless gold-digger by a high society superbitch played by Mary Astor?
The film is a glorious dream of screwball fantasy. There is superb script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett full of wit and innuendo. The director Mitchell Leisen proves a reliable substitute for Ernst Lubitsch. But everything is elevated by this cast, with John Barrymore very much at home in this kind of continental farce.
There are depths. Colbert starts off as a mercenary, but inevitably she must settle for something other than wealth and title. The charade must end. She must settle for love, but the film is very clear that for the poor, love is usually not enough. One of the best comedies of the decade.