Remember the Night

Remember the Night is a 1940 American romantic comedy, Christmas film, and trial film directed by Mitchell Leisen, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. The film was written by the great comic screenwriter Preston Sturges, and it was the last of his scripts shot by another director, as Sturges began his own directorial career the same year with The Great McGinty.

On the drive, Jack gets lost in Pennsylvania and the couple spends the night parked in a field. The next morning, they are arrested by the landowner for trespassing and destruction of property, and taken to an unfriendly justice of the peace. Lee starts a fire in his wastebasket as a distraction, and the pair flees. Lees mother Georgia Caine has remarried, and does not want anything to do with her daughter, who she considers a lost cause. Jack decides to take Lee home to spend Christmas with his family. She is warmly received by his cousin Willie Sterling Holloway, aunt Emma Elizabeth Patterson, and his mother Beulah Bondi, even after Jack reveals Lees past. On New Years Eve, Jack kisses Lee at a barn dance, and later that night his mother goes to Lees bedroom for a talk. She reveals that the family was poor during Jacks childhood, and that he worked hard to put himself through college. She asks Lee to give Jack up, rather than jeopardize his career, and Lee agrees. On the way back to New York via Canada to bypass Pennsylvania, Jack tells Lee that he loves her, and tries to persuade her to jump bail, but she refuses.Back in New York, Jack tries to throw Lees case by acting harsh and aggressive to her and the jury. Jacks boss has been alerted to the affair, and secretly listens outside the courtroom. Realizing that Jack may damage his career, Lee insists on changing her plea to guilty. As she is led away, Jack wants to marry Lee on the spot. She refuses, saying that if he still feels the same way when she has served her sentence, and he has had time to consider his decision, they can marry. ........

Source: Wikipedia