I have been meaning to see this for a very long time. Not only am I big fan of Cary Grant, but I am a big fan of Tokyo, where I live, and Walk, Don’t Run has both, sort of. It was great to see some shots of Tokyo Station in 1964, and to see [...]
Nearing the end of a very long career playing debonair, impeccably-dress gentleman, Cary Grant must have relished his role in Father Goose, in which he plays as a drunk, slightly crude, slob who doesn’t own a necktie and doesn’t have a care in the world. Indeed, the actor said in interviews that this was the closest [...]
By 1962, Cary Grant’s career had waxed and waned several times and the triumph of North by Northwest in 1959 represented something of a comeback for the star. In 1961, Doris day was the number one box office attraction in the world, but out of respect for Grant’s long and distinguished career, which was entering [...]
It takes a director like Blake Edwards to take the WWII submarine genre and turn it into light comedy, and that is exactly what he does in this campy farce. Cary Grant was nearing the end of his very long career, and allowed Tony Curtis to take on the second lead, if not top billing. [...]
Twelve years after Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman shared the screen in Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946), which was perhaps the best romantic film pairing ever, the two stars met again in Indiscreet, a romantic comedy directed by Stanley Donen. While Notorious was one of the most serious and ominous love stories ever produced in Hollywood, Indiscreet [...]
With Hitchcock being my favorite director, and Cary Grant my favorite actor, To Catch a Thief is of course a movie I have seen many, many times before. Hitchcock and Grant made two darker films together: Suspicion and Notorious and two lighter films together: To Catch a Thief and North By Northwest. But even in [...]
In Dream Wife Cary Grant plays a role similar to ones he had played before in films like The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, a man caught between two women, one of them naïve and one of them a mature woman dedicated to her career. In the earlier film it was a teenage girl (Shirley Temple) [...]
This is odd and underrated film that I found by pouring over Cary Grant’s filmography, looking for the few films of his I haven’t seen yet. Grant played doctors and scientist in film like Bringing Up Baby and Monkey Business, creating comedic situation by setting an analytical persona against madcap situations. But this is a [...]
This film is based on the memoirs of Henri Rochard, a Belgian member of the French Army who married a female member of the American expeditionary forces and made a successful, but very trying attempt go with her back to the US. Although countless members of the US military married European women, very few married [...]
Having played more serious roles inDestination Tokyo (1943) and Notorious (1946), Cary Grant returned to comedy with Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, the story of a New York adman who decides to turn his life around by building the perfect home for himself and his family in Connecticut, a pet project that takes over [...]
The Bishop’s Wife tries hard to be an uplifting Christmas film like another post-war drama, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), but falls a bit short in its attempt to pull at the heartstrings. The script is not as tight, and the direction not as consistent as Capra’s perennial holiday favorite, but there is enough here [...]
This film opens with one of the great cinematic reveals of the ’40s. Domestic servant Bessie (Lillian Randolph, who made a lasting impression with her small role as Annie in It’s a Wonderful Life), wakes up high school student Susan (Shirley Temple), who doesn’t want to get up as she feels “sklunklish.” When Bessie threatens [...]
As a big Cary Grant fan, a Cole Porter fanatic, and a member of the legions of admirers of Casablanca, this Porter biopic, from an era when the term “biopic” had yet to be coined, by Casablanca (1942) director Michael Curtiz, has the potential to be my favorite movies of all time. But, unexpectedly, I [...]
Reportedly Cary Grant was later unhappy with his acting in this film, thinking it hackneyed and completely over the top. Indeed his performance is over the top, as is nearly everything else in this film. Based on a long-running Broadway play, the overall direction is stagey, all the acting is overdone, the villains are cartoonish, [...]
Once Upon a Time starts with a prologue befitting its fairy tale title: Someone told us a story the other day that sounded fantastic. But in a world that is so trouble today and where reality is so grim–fantasy was a welcome relief. Thinking you might feel the same way about it–we are passing this [...]
Although I am (obviously) a Cary Grant fan, I have never been into war films, especially submarine films. So Destination Tokyo was a film that I have had on DVD for ages, and always put off watching until today, when I could not find anything I wanted to watch more. . It turned out to [...]
This is an entertaining, but rather odd film. Released in 1942, the same year as Casablanca, this is also the story of a woman torn between two men, with the love triangle set against the backdrop of the concentration camps of World War II. But unlike Casablanca, this Leo McCarey-directed film is full of light [...]
So much has been written about Suspicion, and every Hitchcock film, that it is hard to know what to say about it. The one thing that comes to mind is that it sets itself apart from other films of the ’40s as an early successful example of subjective filmmaking. In the ’60s, Roman Polanski would [...]
My Favorite Wife is a pleasant little slice of a cinematic cake, which is delectable on its own, and becomes all the more fascinating when considering the inspiration and influence of this little film, and the off-camera real-life dramas surrounding it. In the opening scene, Nick Arden (Cary Grant) has his wife, Ellen (Irene Dunne), a photographer [...]
The Philadelphia Story is a film that I have seen countless times, and enjoy it more every time. Why is it the prospect of watching a Sandra Bullock rom-com sends shivers up my spine, but I can watch this film over and over again and enjoy it just as much, even more, with each new [...]
What can be said about His Girl Friday that has not already been said a thousand times over? The dialogue by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur was at the time the best ever written for the screen, and that claim probably still holds true today. For the first time in Hollywood history, the [...]
Cary Grant thought he was miscast in this film about colonial Virginia, and I am inclined to agree with him. It is strange to see the actor, who looked better in a pinstripe suit than any other man who ever appeared on screen, stomping around the woods in buckskins. Although he didn’t have any idea [...]
After seeing the lovely Rita Hayworth in Blondie on a Budget a while ago, I wanted to see more of her films, and decided to go back to the beginning, or at least near enough to the beginning. In 1939, Hayworth had already appeared in nearly two dozen movies, under her real name Margarita Cansino, [...]
Holiday is a gem of a film which is not seen or appreciated nearly enough. Although not as widely available today as The Philadelphia Story (1940) or as celebrated as Bringing Up Baby (1938), Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn are perhaps best paired in this, the third or their four films together. Grant plays free-thinking, [...]
Actor: Cary Grant
Walk, Don’t Run (1966)
I have been meaning to see this for a very long time. Not only am I big fan of Cary Grant, but I am a big fan of Tokyo, where I live, and Walk, Don’t Run has both, sort of. It was great to see some shots of Tokyo Station in 1964, and to see [...]
Father Goose (1964)
Nearing the end of a very long career playing debonair, impeccably-dress gentleman, Cary Grant must have relished his role in Father Goose, in which he plays as a drunk, slightly crude, slob who doesn’t own a necktie and doesn’t have a care in the world. Indeed, the actor said in interviews that this was the closest [...]
That Touch of Mink (1962)
By 1962, Cary Grant’s career had waxed and waned several times and the triumph of North by Northwest in 1959 represented something of a comeback for the star. In 1961, Doris day was the number one box office attraction in the world, but out of respect for Grant’s long and distinguished career, which was entering [...]
Operation Petticoat (1959)
It takes a director like Blake Edwards to take the WWII submarine genre and turn it into light comedy, and that is exactly what he does in this campy farce. Cary Grant was nearing the end of his very long career, and allowed Tony Curtis to take on the second lead, if not top billing. [...]
Indiscreet (1958)
Twelve years after Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman shared the screen in Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946), which was perhaps the best romantic film pairing ever, the two stars met again in Indiscreet, a romantic comedy directed by Stanley Donen. While Notorious was one of the most serious and ominous love stories ever produced in Hollywood, Indiscreet [...]
To Catch a Thief (1955)
With Hitchcock being my favorite director, and Cary Grant my favorite actor, To Catch a Thief is of course a movie I have seen many, many times before. Hitchcock and Grant made two darker films together: Suspicion and Notorious and two lighter films together: To Catch a Thief and North By Northwest. But even in [...]
Dream Wife (1953)
In Dream Wife Cary Grant plays a role similar to ones he had played before in films like The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, a man caught between two women, one of them naïve and one of them a mature woman dedicated to her career. In the earlier film it was a teenage girl (Shirley Temple) [...]
People Will Talk (1951)
This is odd and underrated film that I found by pouring over Cary Grant’s filmography, looking for the few films of his I haven’t seen yet. Grant played doctors and scientist in film like Bringing Up Baby and Monkey Business, creating comedic situation by setting an analytical persona against madcap situations. But this is a [...]
I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
This film is based on the memoirs of Henri Rochard, a Belgian member of the French Army who married a female member of the American expeditionary forces and made a successful, but very trying attempt go with her back to the US. Although countless members of the US military married European women, very few married [...]
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)
Having played more serious roles inDestination Tokyo (1943) and Notorious (1946), Cary Grant returned to comedy with Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, the story of a New York adman who decides to turn his life around by building the perfect home for himself and his family in Connecticut, a pet project that takes over [...]
The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
The Bishop’s Wife tries hard to be an uplifting Christmas film like another post-war drama, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), but falls a bit short in its attempt to pull at the heartstrings. The script is not as tight, and the direction not as consistent as Capra’s perennial holiday favorite, but there is enough here [...]
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)
This film opens with one of the great cinematic reveals of the ’40s. Domestic servant Bessie (Lillian Randolph, who made a lasting impression with her small role as Annie in It’s a Wonderful Life), wakes up high school student Susan (Shirley Temple), who doesn’t want to get up as she feels “sklunklish.” When Bessie threatens [...]
Night and Day (1946)
As a big Cary Grant fan, a Cole Porter fanatic, and a member of the legions of admirers of Casablanca, this Porter biopic, from an era when the term “biopic” had yet to be coined, by Casablanca (1942) director Michael Curtiz, has the potential to be my favorite movies of all time. But, unexpectedly, I [...]
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Reportedly Cary Grant was later unhappy with his acting in this film, thinking it hackneyed and completely over the top. Indeed his performance is over the top, as is nearly everything else in this film. Based on a long-running Broadway play, the overall direction is stagey, all the acting is overdone, the villains are cartoonish, [...]
Once Upon a Time (1944)
Once Upon a Time starts with a prologue befitting its fairy tale title: Someone told us a story the other day that sounded fantastic. But in a world that is so trouble today and where reality is so grim–fantasy was a welcome relief. Thinking you might feel the same way about it–we are passing this [...]
Destination Tokyo (1943)
Although I am (obviously) a Cary Grant fan, I have never been into war films, especially submarine films. So Destination Tokyo was a film that I have had on DVD for ages, and always put off watching until today, when I could not find anything I wanted to watch more. . It turned out to [...]
Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)
This is an entertaining, but rather odd film. Released in 1942, the same year as Casablanca, this is also the story of a woman torn between two men, with the love triangle set against the backdrop of the concentration camps of World War II. But unlike Casablanca, this Leo McCarey-directed film is full of light [...]
Suspicion (1941)
So much has been written about Suspicion, and every Hitchcock film, that it is hard to know what to say about it. The one thing that comes to mind is that it sets itself apart from other films of the ’40s as an early successful example of subjective filmmaking. In the ’60s, Roman Polanski would [...]
My Favorite Wife (1940)
My Favorite Wife is a pleasant little slice of a cinematic cake, which is delectable on its own, and becomes all the more fascinating when considering the inspiration and influence of this little film, and the off-camera real-life dramas surrounding it. In the opening scene, Nick Arden (Cary Grant) has his wife, Ellen (Irene Dunne), a photographer [...]
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
The Philadelphia Story is a film that I have seen countless times, and enjoy it more every time. Why is it the prospect of watching a Sandra Bullock rom-com sends shivers up my spine, but I can watch this film over and over again and enjoy it just as much, even more, with each new [...]
His Girl Friday (1940)
What can be said about His Girl Friday that has not already been said a thousand times over? The dialogue by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur was at the time the best ever written for the screen, and that claim probably still holds true today. For the first time in Hollywood history, the [...]
The Howards of Virginia (1940)
Cary Grant thought he was miscast in this film about colonial Virginia, and I am inclined to agree with him. It is strange to see the actor, who looked better in a pinstripe suit than any other man who ever appeared on screen, stomping around the woods in buckskins. Although he didn’t have any idea [...]
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
After seeing the lovely Rita Hayworth in Blondie on a Budget a while ago, I wanted to see more of her films, and decided to go back to the beginning, or at least near enough to the beginning. In 1939, Hayworth had already appeared in nearly two dozen movies, under her real name Margarita Cansino, [...]
Holiday (1938)
Holiday is a gem of a film which is not seen or appreciated nearly enough. Although not as widely available today as The Philadelphia Story (1940) or as celebrated as Bringing Up Baby (1938), Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn are perhaps best paired in this, the third or their four films together. Grant plays free-thinking, [...]