Father Goose (1965)

I confess I could not get this movie the first time around. And I confess it's become sort of a favorite since then. It's a strange movie, probably mostly because of the weird chemistry between the very young prim French woman and the older slovenly drunk American soldier.



And yet, it's got something - I'm starting to sound like a broken record tonight so maybe this means that Cary Grant is the something. A man who can somehow leap over absurdity in a single bound and make us love the ridiculous. I wonder if Steve Martin is like the closest thing we have to a Cary Grant in our generation only - let's face it, Steve - not quite as handsome.

Yup, CG has the physical comedy down like John Cleese or Steve Martin - and yet he has more charm than George Clooney double-dating with Richard Gere. I'm telling you, he is the MAN.

Cary, you are the MAN.

Anyhow, back to the movie...CG plays a drunk and disorderly soldier left alone to watch for planes on an island in the South Pacific. He is only motivated by his desire to find liquor that his commander has hidden on the island to motivate him.

Enter a damsel in distress...Cary is sent to fetch a diplomat's grown daughter escorting a troop of other diplomats' daughters who have crashed? or been abandoned? on a desert island nearby. He rescues them to his island and they set up house, sort of.

Cary befriends the children, the prim and proper diplomat's daughter can't stay prim and proper on a desert island, and the rest is...history.

The best scene involves a snake bite and is about halfway through the movie.

For that scene if nothing else, this one is also a must-watch.

Three stars. Am watching again right now.

Operation Petticoat (1959)

Cary Grant just keeps working!



Here he is in 1959 playing the captain of a submarine in a tough spot. I'm a little hazy on the details, but somehow this luckless submarine has never seen a battle and yet has too many mechanical problems to be approved to go back into action. Nevertheless, they need to get it under way.

There is a lot of comedy at the expense of the way the Navy runs things. All about requisitioning toilet paper and the black market for parts and supplies. Tony Curtis plays the man adept at working back channels to get things.

The sub ends up taking off without it's proper top coat of paint, so it's pink. Then Tony Curtis convinces the captain to take some WAC nurses on board for the ride. And - you guessed it! - hilarity ensues.

There is a lot of entertainment in young Tony Curtis and mature Cary Grant playing off each other. There is plenty of sexism (and racism where the islanders of the South Pacific are concerned) to go around and the whole movie just gets very silly when they go into battle with the women aboard.

However, there are redeeming points including:

- A scene in which Cary Grant demands Tony Curtis give up his tight white tennis shorts for regular army gear.
- A female engineer teaching a male engineer a thing or two.
- An indescribible scene with a pig being passed off as a soldier.

Two stars - and yet it is a MUST watch.