Born to Be Bad (1934)

A must-see in the quest to see all attainable Cary Grant movies.  Not a must-see in a quest to enjoy classic movies.

Unwed mother raises son in bookshop owned by kind old man.  Now lives on own.  Raising son to take care of himself in a tough, tough world... to steal, lie, wreak havoc, perpetrate fraud.

Son is unharmed while rollerskating into Cary Grant's character's truck!  Cary Grant's character is rich?  Pretend son is terribly injured.  Lawsuit!

Plan backfires!  Mother declared unfit!  Son taken away!  Cary Grant and wife try to do right by "injured boy."  Have him stay at their lavish home.  Oops, boy's mother arrives to stay and attempts to take Cary Grant for herself.  Cary Grant is momentarily a slut.

Silly one star (zero star?) movie that I don't plan to see again.  In search of a good Cary Grant movie that I have not yet seen...

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)

OMG I'm in love with Preston Sturges!
About a year ago, I had a conversation with noted television producer Scott Moschella and he recommended Preston Sturges to me. I've created a Tivo wishlist, but this is the first movie I've captured with it - and it was AWESOME. So, thanks, Scott!



Trudy Kockenlocker is a small-town girl who can't resist a man in uniform. So when her overly-strict father forbids her to attend the farewell dance for the "boys" she convinces local sap Norval Jones to take her to the movies and then sneaks off to the party.

Poor Norval! Trudy plays him like a fiddle, tears up his car, and leaves him waiting at the movie theater all night. When she finally returns, she can't remember where she has been.

From what she recalls, Trudy thinks she might have impetuously married one of the soldiers under an assumed name. Unfortunately for Trudy, she turns out to be pregnant.

Of course, adorable devoted Norval is eager to help her out of this jam and, of course, hilarity ensues.



Trudy's little sister, Emmy, is one of the gems of the film with great deadpan lines.

It's almost like a Farrely Brothers film except - it's so feel-good and the plot, despite being 64 years out-of-date, is not predictable. It's just a great cast of characters in a comedy of errors compounding errors compounding errors.

Four stars, will definitely watch again and I'm sure I'll get more out of it.

A Place in the Sun (1951)

We flipped to this after Heroes didn't record...it was already about halfway through. Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor - famous for being young, beautiful, famous and...just friends.



Rose McGowen was guest programming with Robert Osbourne (and looking great doing so). Robert talked about how there is chemistry between Taylor and Clift here but not in their later films together - he thought because later they were too close as friends to have chemistry.

Hmm, Robert, I don't know, do you think that could be because Clift was showing the unabashed admiration, flattery and tender attention that only a gay man (not risking any real rejection) can lavish on a woman? And, not knowing he was gay (yet), Taylor was very naturally responding warmly to this attention and showing him that sensual and openly affectionate side that unreserved adoration from a beautiful man can bring out in a woman? Making beautiful screen chemistry. And they do have chemistry but - it's all in Taylor's eyes! She does have beautiful eyes.



And legs.

That must have been hard for Liz - being best buddies with the most beautiful young gay man in the world. I guess River Phoenix was my generation's Montgomery Clift. Why is it that famous young lesbians run around Hollywood racking up DUIs and indulging in dangerous fashion combinations while famous young gay boys run around Hollywood racking up scandals and indulging in dangerous drug combinations?

I guess it's still harder to be a macho gay man that it is to be a come-hither lesbian. Or you could be a macho-lesbian a la Jodie Foster...but I digress.

The movie's about a young man from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in love with a girl from the right side of the tracks but - oops - he's knocked up his old girlfriend already. So he 'finds a way to get rid of her' as Tivo euphemistically puts it.



This movie has a doomed, guilty mood to it - a real melancholy, dark feel.

You can see how Montgomery Clift fed this role deeply from his own life - his passion and his guilt all mixed up to make a kind of exquisite private torture for him. I wonder if having a tragic life counts as acting? Anyhow. Like James Dean and Brando I'm sure he's really good and everything, but I just can't pretend I enjoy watching his performance. He's tortured, we get it, can we cut to the chase?

Coming in halfway through, we weren't sure if he was really guilty or just guilty of wanting her dead.

Do you think she thinks he's innocent? I asked Kim.
Yeah, she said.
Do you think he is innocent, I asked.
I don't know, Kim said, I'm kind of iffy.
We decided we thought he was guilty.

Two stars, for Elizabeth Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor's legs. Will not watch again.

Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! (1967)

Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee - lousy with viginity!

When I was eight years old and learned every word to that song (from the musical Grease if you didn't know - you might also want to come out from under that rock - looks uncomfortable under there) I had no idea who Sandra Dee was. The thing is, now that I have discovered her, I don't find her to be lousy with virginity. In almost every role she plays, she ends up sending off the unmistakable allure of innocent desire. Sure, she's virginal, but her eyes say "take me" - maybe that's the point. That innocence was the one thing Rizzo, dancing around in her underwear, knew she didn't have.

Nevertheless, I think Sandra Dee is MUCH sexier than Olivia Newton-John's Sandy. And in this movie she actually loses it. Then, at the end of the movie, when a man says to her "you ARE a vestal virgin" she gets to utter the sinful line "well, not QUITE" - followed by a camera pan down to her pregnant belly. Touche, Rizzo!



I liked this movie despite the "oh those crazy crazy kids" theme that it had going (same as the other sixties movies) - also, did they discover voice over in the sixties? Or just fail to restrain themselves in the use of voice over?

Sandra Dee plays an unwed mother with three men vying for her hand.
FLASHBACK! How did this come to be?
The young virgin had a stage mother and Sandra was her victim - I mean, star. In her quest for the dream of a famous daughter, her mother (who also is mysteriously single - maybe a war widow?) mortgages the house and overlooks the antics of her daughter's amorous beaus.

Sandra's character fights the young men off like a true virgin but can't help giving it up for one man...landing her in the predicament she's in at the beginning of the movie.

In addition to the flashback with awful voice over, there are two dream sequences, an awful montage, and a round of "special effects" where things pop on and off the screen. It's the kind of movie that "Down with Love" mocks so perfectly. And yet it's not a bad evening after all.

After all, Sandra Dee, like I said, just oozes sex without seeming dirty and who is George Hamilton? He's kinda dreamy:

Ew. Or he was in 1967...do yourself a favor, don't google George Hamilton images...you'll just ruin it for yourself.

Also, there are the costumes! One outfit of a minor player - a secretary, had me mesmerized. And there is a scene where SD dances in a club in high-waisted capri pants and a cropped sweater some little flats and a long bohemian necklace that just made me want to run out and recreate the whole ensemble. (Me to myself: "This is how pants can be so great: they are sexy, sophisticated, relaxed, feminine, modern, and liberated all at once. Also, they make her ass look great.")

Will watch again...just remember to fast forward through the montage of facial expressions that takes the place of an argument in the cab.

Four Stars. Will watch again.

Until They Sail (1957)

Four Stars - and I don't usually like dramas.


Four sisters: Anne, Barbara, Delia and Evelyn (pronounced Eve-lyn) - are left alone in the world with their parents dead and their brother and Barbara's husband gone off to war. Each one copes differently: pragmatic Barbara puts up a map to track the soldiers' movements, prim Anne makes a pot of tea, little Evelyn day-dreams about her young boyfriend going off to war like the men, but flirtatious Delia matter-of-factly marries the town slob and then, desperately bored, runs off to meet more men as soon as her husband is finally drafted. She might as well be called Scarlett Delia O'Hara - I'm sure she is the descendant of the New Zealand Branch of that same family.

Anne considers Delia's actions indecent, but Barbara is less judgmental, even going so far as to visit a bar with Delia and her soldier beau. The beau insists on introducing the prim and proper sister Barbara to his mopey recently-divorced Major played by a young and very pretty Paul Newman. You can see how the guy became an institution, he has the same lips that Michelangelo carved onto David.


These newly arrived soldiers that Delia befriends are Americans and they are ruder and raunchier than the nice young men who went off to war. Anne's so incensed with them that she writes a letter to the paper. In answer to her letter a very well-bred American officer stops by to apologize. Decent Anne becomes a little more human under his influence, but then he, too has to leave.

The youngest daughter, played by Sandra Dee, is of course innocently fascinated with the Americans - just as she is genuinely touched by all the losses the sisters experience.

First their brother, Kit, then Barbara's husband, Mark are killed. The worthless slob that Delia married just ends up a prisoner of war, but that doesn't stop Delia from taking up with the American soldiers.

Barbara seems to hold up the best to all of this loss, but she is lonely. Ultimately, the whole movie is about what people will do to combat lonliness - but it's remarkably un-sad. There are sad moments, of course - it would make a good movie to cry to if you were feeling lonely and sorry for yourself - but it's plenty entertaining and really what pulls you through is knowing that Barbara, who seems to be the most reasonable, is the most desperately lonely, from the beginning. She is the lonliest the longest and in the end, she and the Mopey Major make for an interesting, and ultimately satisfying ending.


The Mopey Major Makes His Move

I love a sad movie with a Happy Ending :)
Will watch again, maybe right now!

People Will Talk (1951)

Two stars. Might watch again if I was in a the mood.
Strange, a little long but charming in its own way.



CG plays a Patch Adams character - a doctor who is persecuted for his unconventional but successful methods and who has a noble and eccentric character. He gets mixed up with an unwed mother whose pregnancy he will not abort and they fall in love ~ surprise!

Unfortunately for his leading lady, Jeanne Craine, any woman playing opposite this character is just a pretty backdrop to his act. JC played the oldest daughter in the original bitterweet version of Cheaper by the Dozen. Once a martyr, always a martyr, I guess. In Cheaper she sacrifices her future to help her mother support the large family her family-planning-averse parents raised after her eccentric father's sudden and tragic death.

Later, she would go on to play Rose Smith, martyr older sister in a remake of Meet Me in St. Louis - also with Myrna Loy as the mom. In PWT she plays an unwed mother who is willing pay the ultimate price to protect - someone - we're not sure if it is herself, the baby or her poor father.

Anyway, with a nod to her performance, despite my actor-brother's disapproval of same, I think this is Cary's movie. He does a great job playing the charming eccentric - much better than Robin Williams, in my opinion.

The movie has a touch of seriousness to it, which makes for some odd transitions between humor and melodrama, but it is likable just the same, even if not lovable.