Cary Grant

  • Houseboat (1958)

    Houseboat (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2020) Cary Grant and Sofia Loren. That’s it—that’s the reason to see Houseboat, and I don’t have to add anything more. But for the form: Houseboat is a romantic comedy featuring a newly-widowed government officer (Grant), who ends up with three unfamiliar kids in his small Washington apartment. Looking for relief, he ends up hiring what he thinks is an Italian nanny in need of a job (Loren), without quite understanding that she’s the daughter of a famous musical figure wanting to escape a difficult situation. The remaining key to Houseboat’s plot comes when they decide to get out of Washington for the summer and go live on a houseboat that ends up being far less luxurious than expected. Silver-haired Grant is in fully charming form here as the slightly befuddled dad and romantic interest to two women. The romance is messier than expected—despite the inevitability of the final pairing, I can’t help that the film made the wrong choice along the way. Still, it’s a rather fun film, with the expected doofus-daddy antics, the romantic charm and the often-interesting period depiction of late-1950s Washington, DC. Behind-the-scenes, Houseboat is famous for having been written by and for Grant’s second wife Besty Drake, with a role quickly recast and rewritten for Loren after she started an affair with Grant on the set of another film… an affair that ended before shooting wrapped on Houseboat—the perils of Hollywood dating! It doesn’t make the film any better or worse, although you can detect some remnants of other plans in the sometimes-zig-zagging script. I still liked Houseboat, but it isn’t a first-tier Grant.

  • Thirty Day Princess (1934)

    Thirty Day Princess (1934)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) Cary Grant wasn’t always Cary Grant—his accession to Hollywood superstardom was the result of refining his screen persona until it hit an apex, quite unlike the young man born Archibald Leach. Thirty Day Princess hangs at the end of Grant’s apprenticeship in the movies—right before his breakthrough in Sylvia Scarlett, but already demonstrating his talent for suave, confident leading men. He’s not the star of the film—that would be Sylvia Sidney, playing a dual role as both a foreign princess come to America on a fundraising tour, and a young struggling actress who’s asked to impersonate the princess during a bout of illness. Grant plays the love interest—an influential New York City paper owner who is seduced by the actress playing princess. It’s a fair comedy: not hilarious by any means, but decently amusing and probably a film most viewers haven’t yet seen unless they’ve dug down deep in the Grant filmography. Its (barely) Pre-Code nature can be most clearly seen in some of the banter between princess and actress, as royalty lives vicariously through the impersonator’s romantic episodes. I really enjoyed the look inside an Automat—a relic of a past age that, somehow, always earns my fascination. Thirty Day Princess is not a film for the ages, but it’s watchable enough, gets a few laughs and certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome at a mere 74 minutes. Plus, you get Grant as a young thirty-year-old, a bit rough around the edges but already showing the world what everyone would love from him a few years later.

  • Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)

    Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) You really can’t go wrong with a combination of Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers, especially not in Once Upon a Honeymoon, a propaganda romantic comedy film (!) in which Grant (as a journalist) helps Rogers (playing a burlesque performer passing as a high-society woman) unmask her fiancé as a Nazi. Travelling through Germany, her fiancé seems curiously involved in every country that falls to the invading German forces, eventually forcing her to work for the American government in unmasking him. Once Upon a Honeymoon was clearly meant as propaganda considering how, despite its jolly tone, Rogers’ character ends up murdering her Nazi fiancé at the climax for the picture (he had it coming – it was self-defence) and everyone laughs it up as the only good Nazi being a dead Nazi. (They’re right, but it’s still a bit jarring considering how Grant makes funny faces in the middle of it all.) That ending sequence is the cap on what is indeed a bit of an uneven film, shifting between serious thriller and fluffy romantic comedy at the drop of a hat and then over again. It’s a certainly a curio in that Grant tries to play his character both as a romantic lead and a thriller hero. I’m not sure there were that many romantic comedies taking aim at Nazis, and I’ll always welcome one more. I’ll probably have another look at Once Upon a Honeymoon eventually, knowing what to expect.

  • Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

    Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) Some experiences transcend time and space, and so the premise described by Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House carries through the decades all the way to now. While I haven’t had the experience of contracting the building of a new house, I have enough experience with major renovations to sympathize with the lead character as he engineers his family’s move from a cramped Manhattan apartment to a Connecticut country estate… which has to be torn down and built anew. Cary Grant is perfect for the demands of the role: he can go from patrician to bewildered in the same scene, not to mention a climactic scene of righteous indignation at the accumulated costs of his new house. Numerous comic sketches pepper the rather simple narrative – obviously, this is a film meant to put one comic set-piece after another, and gradually crank the pressure on the protagonist until he cracks. Grant does get a few capable actors to play with: Myrna Loy makes for a very reasonable wife (except for her flower sink, whatever that is), while Melvyn Douglas brings the snark into the movie as a sarcastic friend/lawyer trying to keep the protagonist out of trouble, only to fall into the same madness from time to time. The picture of dealing with contractors is still hilariously accurate, although a jealousy subplot seems to fit badly. While the film is a comic success, modern audiences may find less to laugh about in a few scenes: There’s a tone-deaf breakfast table discussion in which the children talk about their progressive ideals, for instance… while a black maid works behind them. Later on, that same black maid provides a creative spark that the lead character desperately needs to keep his new house – and while the film acknowledges her contribution by giving her a whole ten-dollar raise, it does leave a less-than-ideal impression. Oh well – this is a film from the late 1940s, after all. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is about as funny as its titles suggest – it got quite a few honest laughs from me, and not all of the film’s success can be attributed to Grant as the headliner.

  • I Was a Male War Bride (1949)

    I Was a Male War Bride (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2020) How can anyone resist Howard Hawks reteaming with Cary Grant, with Ann Sheridan as a co-star? While I Was a Male War Bride can be accused of stretching a mildly amusing real-life anecdote over nearly two hours, even its uneven nature doesn’t quite take away from the pleasure of seeing Hawks handle comedy, of having Cary Grant goof off in a solid role, or Sheridan as the foil to Grant’s good-natured willingness to make fun of himself. Much of the film’s first half seems disconnected to the title, as a French officer (Grant) and an American lieutenant (Sheridan) fall in love through a copious amount of romantic belligerence in postwar Europe. The title comes into focus midway through, as the film shifts gears, marries its protagonists and then becomes mired in the bureaucratic nightmare of having our square-jawed hero fall into the provisions made for repatriating spouses (usually women) of American soldiers. Kafka turns comic, as Grant repeatedly tries to navigate regulations made for a woman, going all the way to a gender-bending moment of crossdressing. Grant is a good sport throughout, playing with the assumed gender norms on which rest the fundamentals of this comedy. As usual for Hawks’s movies, his female characters are sharply drawn to be the equal of his male characters (even more obviously so in this case) and his dialogue is as fast as the actors can deliver it. While I Was a War Male Bride does not feature very highly on Hawks or Grant’s filmography, it’s a solid comedy and well worth a look for fans of the director or stars.

  • The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)

    The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) As the title suggests, there is one potentially troubling March-June relationship in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer that would make any viewer apprehensive – especially considering that it’s a film from the 1940s. But fear not, enlightened twenty-first-century viewers: Even Classic Hollywood knew that thirtysomething bachelors (even one played by Cary Grant) should not mess around with 17-year-old girls with a crush. Much of the film’s comedy in this film is about the protagonist (Grant) trying to get together with an age-appropriate professional woman (Myrna Loy) while her younger sister (Shirley Temple) interferes. There’s just enough implied naughtiness to make things interesting—the rest is scene-by-scene comedy, as Grant plays both halves of his suave persona unafraid to be humiliated. Cleverly conceived (the script, penned by future potboiler bestseller Sidney Sheldon, won a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award), it’s unobtrusively put together by director Irving Reis and very easy to watch. Grant’s charm does most of the work, but there are also plenty of scattered laughs in the details—my favourite has to be a rapid-fire exchange about “The man with power of whodoo / Who do? / You do!” which sounds like the kind of period nonsense exchange immortalized on screen—and later quoted by David Bowie. While definitely a middle-tier Grant comedy, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer remains a charmer despite a slightly suspicious premise, and a great showcase for its three stars.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, January 2021) Cary Grant had the looks and the charm that could make any kind of creepy nonsense seem amusing, and there’s no better proof of that statement than watching The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, a film in which (as it says in the title) he suffers through an unrequited crush from a flighty teenager. Shirley Temple plays the titular bobby-soxer, but it’s Myrna Loy who’s the prize here as the teenager’s older sister, a judge whose tangles with Grant’s character leads to romance. Before that happens, however, there’s got to be plenty of sequences of misunderstandings, comic complications, bone-headed movie psychology, attempts from Grant’s character to divert his teenage admirer to a more appropriate partner, and some physical comedy along the way. To its credit, the film knows that pairing Grant (who was 43) and Temple (who was 19) is a terrible idea—and if that seems perfectly reasonable to you, keep in mind that other similar Hollywood movies, such as the 1954 farce Susan Slept Here, weren’t even able to do that. There are a few good set-pieces and lines of dialogue here: While I’m ambivalent about the outdoors sports scene, the last restaurant sequence is very funny—even if it ends in a way that leads the film to another ten minutes of decreasing interest as the conclusion peters out rather than build to a strong finale. (Hollywood obviously disagreed, because the film won a screenwriting Academy Award.)   The call-and-response, “The power of hoodoo.” “Who do?” “You do!” is also quite amusing, and wisely used as closing lines to wrap it up. In between Grant, Temple and Loy, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer is an amiable-enough comedy that manages to steer itself away from some pitfalls that befell other similar films. It’s worth a look, especially for fans of the three lead actors.

  • Destination Tokyo (1943)

    Destination Tokyo (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) Not even Cary Grant in the leading role can raise Destination Tokyo’s profile above being a straight-up propaganda picture. Assembled in efficient wartime hurry, the narrative invents a dangerous submarine mission to plant spies near Tokyo in preparation for the Doolittle Raid. As one of the first big wartime submarine movies, it boldly invents what would become clichés of the form and indulges into blunt anti-enemy rhetoric –most notably by claiming that the Japanese devalue their women. If you can put aside Destination Tokyo’s straight-up propaganda value and methods, it’s not badly done: the portrait of life aboard a submarine is credibly portrayed in the buildup to the straightforward action sequences (even if the quarters are somewhat more spacious than in real life) and the Oscar-nominated script does fine with characterization. Destination Tokyo is also notable for decent-for-the-time special effects using a scale model in a water tank: they’re not all that credible today, but they certainly make their point. Grant is remarkable not simply for lending his usual charm to the production, but playing an out-of-persona dramatic role as a military man far removed from his usual romantic leads. But any prospective viewers should be reminded once more that Destination Tokyo was made to boost patriotism and recruitment at a time when the United States was at war against the Japanese with no idea about how it would end.

  • Night and Day (1946)

    Night and Day (1946)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) As far as Hollywood biopics of famous composers go, Night and Day has three things going for it, even if the third is a double-edged sword. It’s in colour, it has good songs recognized as classics, and it features Cary Grant in the lead role as Cole Porter. But while Grant raises the profile of the film, no one ever mentions this film as one of his great roles: he’s not much of a singer, his screen persona is so distinct as to be unable to disappear in a specific role, and it’s not clear what he brings to the role that another actor couldn’t. Once past the songs, the colour and Grant, there’s not a whole lot left. Even Night and Day’s official TCM logline recognizes that it’s “fanciful”—which is code for saying that the openly gay Porter is here portrayed as straight, that nearly every biographical fact of his life has been altered and that the film doesn’t really care about accuracy—just reading his Wikipedia article is enough to make you realize just how “fanciful” the film is. Otherwise, Night and Day also sticks close to its Broadway-friendly topic by remaining resolutely theatre-bound, in subject matter and in staging. It’s all very old-fashioned even by 1940s standards, and that may not work for many newer viewers. Some forced comedy can’t quite shake the cobwebs out of this rather dull film, and its strengths can’t dispel its well-earned reputation as one of the least accurate Classic Hollywood biopics ever made.

  • The Talk of the Town (1942)

    The Talk of the Town (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) Heavier on the romance and lighter on the comedy, The Talk of the Town nonetheless remains a Cary Grant all-spectacular. The premise is archetypical enough, with an escape criminal finding refuge in the same cottage as a lawyer and the woman they both lust over. With Grant, Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman as the three points of the triangle, things quickly heat up. Grant remains utterly charming in the film’s mixture of laughs, suspense and romance—you would think that Colman would have trouble keeping up, but he does quite well in his inglorious role as the romantic rival. Worth noting: the jazzy opening sequence that crams a first act’s worth of exposition in a few minutes’ worth of spinning newspaper montages. Amazingly enough, the ending wasn’t decided until test screenings picked one romantic winner over the other. There are a few pacing issues, as well as some rough transitions from one tone to another, but The Talk of the Town remains a very satisfying blend of different things, with Grand, Colman and Arthur being equally enjoyable throughout it all.

  • An Affair to Remember (1957)

    An Affair to Remember (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2020) While An Affair to Remember is often hailed as one of the finest romantic movies of all time, it’s amazing to see how much it walks a very fine line between an honest romantic comedy and overcooked romantic schmaltz. The film is almost clearly divided into two halves, and as things unfolded, I ended up watching the film in two separate sessions separated by that division. The first half of the film is significantly better than the second, as a world-famous playboy meets a retired nightclub singer aboard a transatlantic liner bound for New York. Comedy and smart dialogue take precedence in this flirty first half, culminating in a cleverly unseen kiss that complicates everything for both characters, as they are already engaged to others. Faster than you can say, “Sleepless in Seattle will steal this,” they agree to meet on top of the Empire State Building six months later. It’s all funny and charming and Cary Grant can do no wrong and Deborah Kerr (despite an unflattering hairstyle) clearly shows why she was one of the best actresses of her time. Then there’s the break: the characters disembark from the ship in Manhattan, and the film loses the pressure of the seagoing setting. But that’s also the point where the film piles on the contrived obstacles, what with one character becoming paraplegic on the way to a weepy conclusion. It works largely because of the actors, because suave, charming and sophisticated Grant could make people swoon by reading the telephone book at that time of his career. It ends on a note that would be unbearable had the film starred nearly anyone else—good casting, certainly, but not-so-good screenwriting. Despite its flaws, there’s no denying that An Affair to Remember is a film to remember as well: not as a completely successful film as much as an imperfect one that succeeds despite itself based on certain very specific elements. Amusing enough, it’s directed by Leo McCarey, who also directed Love Affair, the film on which An Affair to Remember is based.

  • None but the Lonely Heart (1944)

    None but the Lonely Heart (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) When you intend to watch an actor’s entire filmography, you have to take the good with the not-so-good, and so any Cary Grant fan has to go through None but the Lonely Heart on the way to (or once past) better movies. Oh, it’s not that that this poverty/family/criminal drama is terrible—in fact, it does have its qualities, most notably in portraying a Londonian working-class environment and wrapping up domestic drama in spicier criminal activity. Still, this is fairly mild and disappointing stuff for Grant, who gets to use a Cockney accent (not his own) and a fraction of his natural charm as a young cad who learns better. For Grant’s fans, this is the film that best portrays his lower-class origins, although that’s not much of an overall comfort.  Fans of car chases will be impressed by an explosive action sequence late in the film—and seeing the wires used for the special effects only somehow makes it all better. A relatively minor entry in Grant’s filmography (but significant in its own way), None but the Lonely Heart remains for convinced fans in the mood to appreciate a bit of social realism.

  • She Done Him Wrong (1933)

    She Done Him Wrong (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) There are many things that are simply wrong about She Done Him Wrong if you take a look at it from a conventional perspective. The script’s pacing is lopsided, with nearly nothing happening for a while, only for the movie to rush through murders and revelations in its last third. In many ways, this 69-minute-long film feels like the first two acts of a longer movie, as it spends so much time setting up a situation that is quickly defused without going further in plotting. Even worse is how the lead character has all the spotlights (narrative and literal) aimed at her—prior to her entrance, characters keep talking about how wonderful she is, her entrance practically comes with a fanfare, and she spends the rest of the film cutting down other characters with withering bon mots followed by a repetitive moue. In other hands, this would have been a laughably bad movie, forgotten in the fog of time. But here’s the thing: This isn’t just any lead actress—this is Mae West, and she wrote much of the script, adapting her own theatrical showpiece. She Done Him Wrong was deliberately planned to be a celebration of her sex appeal, and sold as such: everyone involved in this film in 1933, filmmakers and audience alike, knew what they were there for. As legend has it, they may have gone too far: She Done Him Wrong was a key justification for the enforcement of the Hays Code that would emotionally stunt American cinema for decades and clamp down hard on the kind of sexually liberated character that was Mae West’s stock-in-trade. West herself is an interesting case study in sex appeal: While her appearance is nothing special, things are different when considering her attitude and quips, several of whom would still have HR departments apoplectic if used in a corporate setting. The film is built around her (yes, Cary Grant plays the hero here—but let’s not pretend that the film is about him) and still acts effectively as a primer for contemporary audiences as to what Mae West was all about. She Done Him Wrong is far more interesting as a monument than a movie… even though you may have to power through much of the film’s weaker moments to get to its finest ones.

  • For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

    For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2019) You could be forgiven for thinking, at first glance, that Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls are the same movie—after all, aren’t they both Hemingway novel adaptations featuring Cary Grant as a man who fall in love with a woman during wartime? Well, yes, but there are more than a few differences. For Whom the Bell Tolls, having been made ten years later, features colour cinematography, numerous exteriors, Ingrid Bergman (with short hair), more grandiose wartime sequences, fewer classical-Hollywood touches, and more assurance in how it presents its story. As a long (…very long…) look at the life of rebels during the Spanish Civil War, it spends quite a bit of time detailing life in the bush, tensions between combatants and the love story between our two leads. Cary Grant is his usual solid yet unusually bland self, playing opposite Ingrid Bergman but with both of them being outshined by Katina Paxinou’s harsh-talking hard-living character. (Paxinou won an Oscar for the role, and you can immediately see why.) Given that our protagonist is a dynamiter, there are a few explosions to make things far more interesting. Alas, the film will try anyone’s patience at nearly three hours complete with introduction and intermission.  In trying to adapt a novel as faithfully as possible, the script forgets that movies work differently and the entire thing feels far too long. Still, it’s well executed, occasionally moving, explosively exciting at times. But For Whom the Bell Tolls could have been shorter. And it does end on a note very similar to that of Farewell to Arms, triumphant Hollywood cues outshining tragedy and all.

  • Gunga Din (1939)

    Gunga Din (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) As a straight white male, I’ve grown increasingly conscious of my own privilege in exploring Hollywood movie history—which was overwhelmingly built by and for straight white men, with the result that they are now best appreciated by straight white men (but maybe not the kind of straight white men who enjoy watching older movies). These issues are impossible to ignore while watching films like Gunga Din, deliberately set in an environment where colonialism is celebrated. Adapted by Rudyard Kipling stories, it’s an adventure film featuring three British soldiers somewhere around the edges of the British Raj, sent to repair communications but soon embroiled in the revival of a murderous cult intent on causing harm to the empire. (The histrionics of the antagonist get so shrill by the end of his speech to the heroes that I half-expected him to conclude with “ … and then I will molest your moms and kick your dogs.”)  Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. are the three likable male leads, with Sam Jaffe playing the titular Gunga Din as a native water carrier who would like nothing more than to fight for the empire. (He gets his wishes, suffers for it and it sent off with the ultimate colonial compliment—”he was a good soldier.”)  Joan Fontaine pops up as one of the soldiers’ fiancée, leading to some curious hijinks in which the two other soldiers do everything they can to sabotage his impending marriage. It all leads to some really good action scenes, suspense sequences and a grand spirit of adventure against overwhelming odds. And that’s the kind of film that Gunga Din is: at once a terrific adventure story in the old-fashioned mould, and yet a disquieting grab-bag of very outdated ideas focusing on the straight white male as the centre of the universe: Boys will be boys (yucky girls had better not disrupt anything), and non-whites are to be killed unless they’re willing to help whites kill other non-whites. Modern viewers will find the end result to be a steady whiplash of contradictions, any enjoyment of the film’s high points constantly being undercut by heave-inducing Victorian values. Even my own privilege failed me throughout Gunga Din: Despite my best intentions and proven capacity at ignoring the bad stuff to focus on the good wasn’t enough to get me to like the result. If I end up recommending Gunga Din in any circumstance, it will be to show how terrible these movies could be.

  • Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

    Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) The historical record tells us that Sylvia Scarlett was a notorious flop upon release; that it had a legendarily bad test screening; and that it helped send Katharine Hepburn’s career in a slump that would take five years to correct. And certainly, it’s a film with its share of flaws—starting with a herky-jerky plot that’s unpredictable not because it’s particularly clever, but because it goes from one thing to another without much forethought. There are some intensely weird mood swings to the story, as it goes from comedy to the death of a main character to once more into comedy. But it’s also a film with many interesting things, especially from a modern perspective. The biggest of those is probably the presence of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, both of them young and dashing and still developing the persona that would follow them throughout their career. Grant’s charm is a bit subdued under a Cockney accent and a character meant to keep audiences either guessing or seething. Hepburn’s turn is far more interesting, as the tergiversations of the plot mean that she spends about half the film in drag, playing a young man. She goes from long tresses to a boy’s haircut, with makeup accents meant to highlight her masculine features. It’s not a bad look, and she does sell the illusion despite being, well, 1930s world-class beauty Katharine Hepburn. Brian Aherne also does quite well as a deliciously likable character absolutely unphased by the revelation that Hepburn’s character is, in fact, a girl. One can see, however, that depression-era America may not have known what to do with the gender-bending comedy of the film (complete with real same-sex kissing and proposed perceived same-sex cuddling). Director George Cukor keeps things moving, but there isn’t that much directorial prowess to the 90-minute film. The comedy is more a case of chuckles than outright laughter: it doesn’t go the extra mile and never makes the fullest use of the elements at its disposal. The ending is odd—satisfying at a basic romantic level, and yet a bit scattered in the way it gets there. It’s perhaps best to see Sylvia Scarlett as a curio, an early showcase for two legendary actors, and also an early example of queer cinema at a time when the Hays Code was starting to crack down on anything outside heteronormativity. (One notes that Cukor was homosexual and that Hepburn was widely rumoured to be bisexual.)  By 1935 standards, Sylvia Scarlett may have been an odd flop—but today, it’s far more interesting than most other movies of the time.