In the middle of the shooting of La Femme en homme (1931), Genina asked Marc Allégret, who had just made Mam’zelle Nitouche, to lend him a hand on Les Amours de minuit. The film turned out well and received a favourable reception from the critics. “Augusto Genina loves trains. Nobody knows better than him how to convey their melancholic air. Departures, puffing locomotives, deafening confusion, an escape through time and space: all of this is a source for undeniable poetry. And this is the setting in which the story of Les Amours de minuit begins: a man, distressed, flees; a travelling companion consoles him. When they arrive at the station in Marseilles, a woman, Georgette, is waiting for him… […] The film’s technical qualities are really admirable in as much as they are totally cinematic but completely different from those of silent cinema. […] The whole cast is perfectly up to par in this interesting work which almost completely avoids the conventionality that its plot could have resulted in” (Robert Curel, “Cinémonde”, January 1931). The actors are also noteworthy and include Danièle Parola, who would go on to appear in Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow in 1934, and Pierre Batcheff, the hero in Luis Buñuel’s Un chien andalou. The Prévert brothers, Jacques and Pierre, also make a brief appearance. After this film, and aided by his producer and friend Pierre Braunberger, Marc Allégret would go on to become one of the greatest directors of the Thirties: Fanny (1932), Lac aux Dames (1934), Sous les yeux d’Occident (1936), Entrée des artistes (1938).

At least two versions of the film exist: Les Amours de minuit, the French version by Augusato Genina and Marc Allégret, and Mitternachtsliebe, by Genina again but this time in collaboration with Carl Froelich.